This week's update contains releases by:
Aarktica * Ahnst Anders * Akira Kosemura * Ambassador 21
*
Amorphous Androgynous * Andrew Liles * Aus * Beaten Awake *
Bellini * Black Heart Procession * Bluermutt * Bob Patterson
* Broadcast & The Focus Group * Broke Revue (Dan Melchior) *
Cedric "Im" Brooks & The Light Of Saba * Chef & Ramadanman *
Clearing * Collapsar * Defrag * Dennis Tyfus & Vaast Colson *
Dieter Bihlmaier Selection * Eliane Radigue * Elm * End *
Future Sound of London * Fuzz Manta * Government Alpha * GR &
Full-blown Expansion * Grant Hart * Guano Padano * Haters,
The * Headlights * Holy Sons * Hylos * Imaad Wasif *
Impediments * Jandek * Jay Bolotin * Jesus Lizard * Keith
Canisius * Kirchenkampf * Lemon Drops, The * Linda Guilala *
Lingouf * Machinefabriek * Maja S.K. Ratkje + Lasse Marhaug *
Maniac/Liles/Czral * Marina Rosenfeld * Master's Apprentices,
The * Miss Autopsy * Moondog * Moondog & The London Saxophonic *
Mudboy * N.strahl.N/Metek * Nick Oliveri * No and the Maybes
* Pete Namlook/David Moufang * Presence * Pyramids with Nadja
* Radian * Rorschach Garden, The * Scene Is Now, The * Seven
Storey Mountain * Shindig * Simon Whetham * Solar Powered People
* Spiracle * Spyra * Starless & Bible Black * Steve Roach *
Sueter * Sufjan Stevens + Osso * The Duck Baker Project *
Thomas Dimuzio & Andre Custodio/Conure * Thomas Function *
Triorganico * Underwater Tea Party * Vlor * Wax Poetics *
Wilson Mckinley
[ F E A T U R E
D R E L E A S E S ]
Bluermutt - Uncertain Data Packed In Red Boxes CD (Audiobulb)
[AB025] $14.34
Wonderfully streamlined and elegant electronic compositions from
Catalonian
digital composer Bluermutt, whose quiet, evocative tones and gently
abstracted sound designs mark themselves out as somehow more approachable
and ear-friendly than most. Anyone who remembers the micro-glitch moments
of Ensemble's Rephlex debut will appreciate the tiny textural world this
26-year old artist opens up, from the glass-like granulations of 'Pack My
Shit And Disappear' to the Ryoji Ikeda-like fractures and ruptures of 'I
Don't Like To Talk'. Tremendously lovely stuff this, yet best of all, it
never descends into syrupy droning harmonies as so many records do these
days - there aren't even any field recordings of birds! Rejoice! -Boomkat
Government Alpha - Resolution Of Rememberance 1992-1999 CD Box
(Pica Disk) [PICA012] $29.75
YASUTOSHI YOSHIDA's GOVERNMENT ALPHA project started in 1992 and became
one
of the leading names in the third generation of Japanese noise. Few artists
embody the "pure energy" noise fans speak of feeling when listening to
noise better than the ferociously intense Government Alpha. This 4xCD box
set collects 62 tracks from obscure cassette releases from 1992 to 1999, as
well as a number of previously unreleased tracks. Packaged in a solid box
with silver foil printing (similar to the Incapacitants box), with a
24-page booklet featuring liner notes by Yoshida and TOMMY CARLSSON, and
graphic collage works by Yoshida.
Kirchenkampf - Dark Planet CD (Cohort) [CRCD134] $14.00
this is a space travelogue starting with the sound of the ship as the
crew
slumbers. It moves to feelings of homesickness as the crew realizes just
how far away home is. They finally arrive at the planet and experience a
magnificent eclipse. They land on the planet and explore its often
frightening landscape. The moon rises and bathes the planet with reflected
light. Now they sit and wait for the first sunrise.
Kirchenkampf - Well of Souls CD (Cohort) [CRCD133] $14.00
three long tracks of cavernous ambience depicting the subterranean in
us
all, spiritual or otherwise.This is available in hand-folded, hand-painted,
hand-stamped covers in a vinyl sleeve.
N.strahl.N/Metek - Drowning Devices CD (Cohort) [CRCD132]
$14.00
five tracks of subtley menacing, creepy combination of pulsing
electronics,
droning vibration, and field recordings evoking a claustrophobic,
lysergic-fueled fevered dreamscape. Comes in a DVD case, the disk is pro
burnt and printed.
Pete Namlook/David Moufang - Move D/Namlook XX: Taygete CD
(Fax) [PK08/191] $27.00
RELEASE DATE: 10-12-2009
Recorded live at David's reSource studio in Heidelberg, Dave and
Pete
present their 20th "Move D/Namlook" collaboration. When considering the
basic theories of space travel and the skills necessary to perform space
flight, one's ultimate goal is crucial. Some scenarios are purely
scientific, while others are of a purely philosophical nature. Combining
atmospheric and hypnotic sounds, this CD is reflecting on and meandering
between matter and antimatter. We recommended setting the player on repeat,
for hours of listening pleasure while drifting away in your own
space...where "every star is like a cell in the brain of the universe".
Spyra - Phonehead CD (Ambient World/Fax) [AW056] $16.50
RELEASE DATE: 10-12-2009
Starting with a sound that could be connected with melodic FAX Hard
Trance
of the old days, Spyra goes deeper into the fields of Ambient-Environmental
music. Spyra's music is often performed with custom-built instruments such
as the "Triangle Pads" and the "Elektrolyra", and consists of diverse sound
sculptures ("sound-sheets").Of course, Spyra is not your typical electronic
musician--he was originally a performance artist who was a part of
Documenta IX (1992) with his work "Panakustikum", as well as Documenta X
(1997) with his work "My Little Garden of Sounds", wherein visitors were
connected to P.A.S.S. (Portable Ambient Sound System) to perceive the
natural environment in a processed way.
Thomas Dimuzio & Andre Custodio/Conure - Street of Errs CD
(Cohort) [CRCD131] $14.00
split of two live performances. Thomas Dimuzio has been in operation
since
the Cassette Culture days. Here he gives us a track recorded live with
Andre Custodio (aka, Nihil Communication, Say Bok Gwai) in San Francisco,
CA, who use live sampling, processing, and synthesizer. Conure (aka, Mark
Wilson, 15 Degrees Below Zero) uses processed sounds from the streets of
Manhattan, recorded live at the Pussycat Lounge in NY. A very bi-coastal
release in the split series.
[ . . . ]
Aarktica - In Sea CD (Silber) [sil078] $12.25
RELEASE DATE: 10-26-2009
"Aarktica's songs are extended reveries, built on loops of guitars &
drums
& occasional voices. The musical elements hover & circle, float by or
bristle with distortion as the songs drift through serenity & trouble." ~
Jon Pareles, The New York Times
In Sea is Jon DeRosa's sixth-full length release as Aarktica & a return to the sound Aarktica has been famous for since its debut No Solace In Sleep in 2000. The story of NSIS is mythic. In the winter of 1999, after learning of his permanent & near-total hearing loss in his right ear caused by nerve damage, DeRosa struggled through auditory hallucinations & an addiction to painkillers to recreate sound as he suddenly began to hear it, akin to being underwater or "in sea." Disoriented by the cacophony of New York City & selfconscious about his deafness, DeRosa withdrew & began writing the songs that would become NSIS. These were sparse guitar compositions recorded quietly in an NYU dorm room on a dying warbly 4-track recorder. While some were as serene as an ice floe passing in the blackest night, others sounded as turbulent & terrifying as a drowning. What followed was the Morning One EP on Ochre Records in 2001 & then several years of releases where DeRosa veered away from his modern ambient/drone guitar orchestrations & towards atmospheric-pop & shoegaze with a number of guest musicians adding strings, horns, & vocals on top of his guitar work. While beautiful & unique, these albums are filled with pensive, paranoid, & often disjointed work that mirrored his frenetic mind during these turbulent & drug-addled points in his life.
While In Sea's title is a nod to Terry Riley's landmark minimal composition "In C," DeRosa also pays tribute to his teachers La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela ("LYMZ"), with whom DeRosa studied composition & Indian classical vocal music during the difficult years following his sudden deafness. He credits Young & Zazeela with teaching him how to hear without ears, relying on the physical vibrations of his instrument & his vocal chords. This ability allows him to create more detailed & nuanced guitar structures than most could make even with full use of their ears.
In 2007, DeRosa moved from New York to California to break the spiral of artistic decay he felt himself falling into. Just one year later he returned to Brooklyn to reclaim his identity & begin work on In Sea, the album that had haunted his head for years. DeRosa approached these recordings just as he did 10 years ago while making NSIS, simply trying to capture the sounds his hearing loss offers up uniquely to him. Only this time, he would opt for a studio environment to record the majority of In Sea, as opposed to a dying 4-track in an NYU dorm. While there are some vocals & traditional song structures on In Sea (something largely absent on NSIS) there are no guests, no producers, no electronics -- no instruments aside from guitars & DeRosa's antique Bilhorn Telescopic Pump Organ, once used for traveling church revivals & home funeral services in the 1930s.
In Sea's parallels to NSIS are apparent on the opening opus "I Am (The Ice)," a majestic dirge reclaiming Aarktica's reputation as a master of chilling, glacial guitar symphonies. Two pieces, "A Plague of Frost (In The Guise Of Diamonds)" & "Corpse Reviver No. 2," were recorded exactly like NSIS's opening track "Glacia" -- double-speed 4-track cassette recordings played back in regular speed mono. The darker, more rhythmic "Instill" meshes post-punk bass & guitar lines in repetition, falling into cathartic bursts of distortion, while tracks like "Onward!," "When We're Ghosts" & "Young Light" convey a youthful optimism absent from most of Aarktica's catalog. "Autumnal" rides along on layers of lush & layered picked guitars, almost hymnal in tone, while "In Sea" simmers like an oceanic storm, with the sky opening up to reveal both rain & bright sunlight. On "Hollow Earth Theory," one of the two vocal tracks on the album, DeRosa hopes against hope that Inner Earth truly does exist, searching ancient maps for an escape & an entrance, stating "We will wait & we will see, if it's right to put our faith all in this hollow earth theory."
The album ends with
Aarktica's cover of Danzig's "Am I Demon?" turning the blues-metal classic
into one of deadpan dark, atmospheric intimacy & self-realization with
organs & reverse guitar loops that imply an unholy exorcism. DeRosa's
exorcism perhaps? We hope so. After all, it sounds like the man has finally
conquered his demons. After years of creating fractured pop songs for
perfect ears, DeRosa has finally reconciled with the way he hears sounds,
letting the rest of the world in on his otherworldly auditory
hallucinations.
Ahnst Anders - Many Ways CD (Ant-Zen) [10634] $17.25
though he started as a dj that focused on electronic sounds, ahnst
anders
wanted to present his own creative output to the public. so in 2003 he
replaced record players with musical instruments. he now works as a stage
and studio performer who merges collages of noises, organic sounds and
electronic music into a inimitable blend of dark ambient and experimental
music. his debut album 'dialog' was released in 2007 simultaneously with
his first concert at maschinenfest. following this were various remixes,
collateral sound work for art exhibitions/installations and a collaborative
album with config.sys. now ant-zen presents ahnst anders' second full
length album.
'many ways' is based on different field recordings of natural sources (fire, water, wind), found objects (chains, metal breakers) and different daily environments (street sounds, trains). using the inspirations received from these recordings anders transformed the raw sound into tracks that range from ambient to breaks. during the production process he kept his senses and spirit as receptive as possible, treading many paths to achieve this result. this open-mindedness to try 'many ways' named the album.
the music on this release combines ambient soundscapes
with a huge variety of rhythmic patterns - from tribal breaks to slow
dub-influenced cadences. ruminant keyboard layers with added field samples
generate a mixture of soothing and unsettling atmospheres. (dark) ambient,
musique concréte and repetitive beats offer a soundtrack for a large number
of moods. as anders elaborates: "music is.. the elixir for impetus, joy,
emotion.. every day we are exposed to disturbing strong sonic waves; why
shouldn't we turn these into something interesting?"
Akira Kosemura - Polaroid Piano CD (Someone Good) [RMSG007]
$14.75
RELEASE DATE: 10-19-2009
Throughout the later half of the 20th century, Edwin Land's Polaroid
film
came to dominate photo albums - offering the chance to 'capture the moment'
and relive it seconds later, Land's product revolutionised the way people
documented the world around them. Yet Polaroid cameras did more than simply
recount past moments - the medium itself inserted a soft-focus, dream-like
quality that appeared to suggest vague recollection over exacting reality.
Following in this tradition, Akira Kosemura's latest pop miniature for Someone Good, Polaroid Piano, shares this hazy filmic impression. It's snapshot of his increasingly personal and evocative piano and electronics pieces, tinted with field recordings (recorded in various locations including recordings from Brisbane and Hobart by Lawrence English) and offered as a series of small but gloriously rich auditory phrases. Played notes and the mechanism of the piano itself share equal presence in the compositions - Kosemura's physicality evident throughout the album.
Polaroid Piano, like the film from which its name is drawn captures a moment, but does so with a shimmer of the unreal and the imagined.
Support Guitar : Muneki Takasaka (Paniyolo) Photo & Design : Yuma Saito (Schole Inc.)
PRESS ON IT'S ON EVERYTHING: "Music of the hushed type, the compositions are fuzzy at the edges, yet a bound in detail and incidents that are newly burnished." -- Milk Factory
"The magic is in
the heartbreaking beauty of the music, music that seems built for one in a
small room, but is offered to all outdoors." -- Music Emissions
Ambassador 21 - Power Rage CD (Invasion Wreck Chords) [10640]
$18.75
this album offers up the characteristic minimal electro pop trg is well
known for. a remarkable featured sound is the predominant use of a korg's
ds10 - a virtual music production studio for a nintendo ds which combines
legendary eighties analogue synth tones with today's editing options - the
result is 21st century electro. exemplary song writing skills and a mastery
of electronic equipment culminates into 14 marvellous tracks that are both
captivating and deep. Once again the rorschach garden offer nostalgia and
sweetness with a dark overlay - making this album a genuine 'place for the
lost'. join them there!
Amorphous Androgynous - Otherness CD (Psychobaby) [263225]
$16.25
If it wasn't for mistakes, the lot of the compulsive record collector
would
be a lot less interesting, and in 2002, the Future Sound of London made a
whopper. Promo copies of their album The Isness (originally released under
their side-project name Amorphous Androgynous) were sent out prior to
release. Reviews were printed. Review copies ended up in used record stores
and on P2P sites. And then FSOL co-leader Gary Cobain had a change of
heart, declaring that the album had too much "masculine energy," and
completely remixed and restructured the whole album before it was properly
released. Normally, that would be that, except that somehow the band's
American label were given masters of the original pre-release version of
the album, and the entire first U.S. pressing of The Isness consisted of
the wrong version of the album, a problem that was quickly rectified. In
2004, under a combination of both of the band names, Future Sound of London
released a two-disc set called The Otherness, but contrary to expectation,
it's not simply both versions of the album brought together; instead, The
Otherness collects most but not all of the scotched version of The Isness
(a minor interlude called "Yes My Brother" is gone entirely, and "The
Galaxial Pharmaceutical" is edited), several previously unreleased tracks
recorded during the same sessions, a song from the original U.K. vinyl
version of the album, and a handful of remixes from associated singles and
EPs. The original tracks from the first version of the album increase the
'60s-vintage druggy psychedelic haze that permeates all of these sessions,
while the single remixes are more traditionally electronic in the tradition
of FSOL's earlier records. For fans (many of whom have probably already
acquired the original version of this album through various means), it's
the previously unheard tracks that are the primary point of interest, and
they're an intriguing lot. In particular, "Rural Green" mixes a pastoral
late-'60s Pink Floyd feel with the slow, sensuous beats of downtempo
electronica, a combination that works surprisingly well. This isn't the
whole story, but it does tie up most of the loose ends. ~ Stewart Mason,
All Music Guide Partabis was here
Amorphous Androgynous - Peppermint Tree & The Seeds of
Superconsciousness CD (FSOL) [1492278] $24.75
2008 release from the Psychedelic offshoot project by Future Sound of
London. This album featuresthe legendary guitar skills of Gary Lucas (Jeff
Buckley and Captain Beeefheart) keyboardist Mikey Rowe(Sheryl Crow, Rolling
Stones) with sitar guru Balujj and orchestrations by Max Richter. Vocals
comefrom Linda Lewis along with members of FSOL.
Aus
- Light In August, Later CD (Someone Good) [RMSG008] $14.75
RELEASE DATE: 10-19-2009
Light In August, Later is the latest work from Tokyo based musician and
composer aus (Yasuhiko Fukuzono). It's a measured and paced collection of
pieces that evoke warm visions of open plains, sun causing mirages to
gather on the ground. In this vision the detail of the environment close at
hand somehow becomes united with the epic horizon laid out beyond it. It is
in fact this relationship between focused detail and sweeping texture that
is at the very heart of this edition.
Matching cycled melodic passages with tiny electronic clicks and tones, aus generates a music that borrows the harmonic intent of pop but reduces it to a fine grain. Melodies blossom, are swept up in a gauze of processing and become transformed into something exquisitely intimate and engaging.
Collaborating with Viennese musician Glim on two pieces, and joined by artists such as Cokiyu on others, this is a record that speaks to aus's abilities not only as a composer, but also a sound crafter of the highest order. An essential and compelling deconstruction of electronic infused pop by one of Japan's most impressive young artists.
PRESS ON aus ALBUMS: "This really is an absolutely beguiling album and it's seen an awful lot of play round at my gaff. Deep, playful and beautiful electronica sounds with some wickedly put together beats." --Smallfish
"A more comprehensive overview of tasteful electronica would be hard to imagine." --Textura
"It's also an album
you'll undoubtedly find yourself looking into on repeated occasions."
--Angry Ape
Beaten Awake - Thunder$troke CD (Fat Possum) [FP1185]
$12.00
RELEASE DATE: 10-13-2009
***"Four 'motley bandits' raised by weird wolves and home-schooled by
trees. We are socially challenged fakers-in every way sincere. And, 'The
Time' has come and gone and is here again. In this, I reference the band in
the fantastic film Purple Rain, which did not influence anything except our
manner of dress. We are old friends who met in a clearing called the Zephyr
'stage.' It was an accident really. We were drunk and desperate and bored.
Time flies and we always notice far too late."
Bellini - Precious Prize Of Gravity CD (Temporary Residence
Ltd) [TRR155] $13.25
Recorded as always with longtime collaborator STEVE ALBINI, The
Precious
Prize of Gravity is BELLINI's most accomplished production yet. Guitarist
AGOSTINO TILOTTA wraps a hundred notes per minute around the towering,
sturdy rhythm section of MATTHEW TAYLOR and ALEXIS FLEISIG (GIRLS AGAINST
BOYS), while GIOVANNA CACCIOLA's poetic lyrics and smoky melodies
alternately recall Grace Slick and PJ Harvey. With no less than four songs
centering around the deaths of loved ones, Precious Prize is lyrically
Bellini's darkest album yet. Never wanting to repeat themselves, the songs
are more complex and progressive than the comparatively stark Small Stones,
with a driving, X-inspired cowpunk vibe throughout.
Black Heart Procession - Six CD (Temporary Residence Ltd)
[TRR157] $14.00
More than just a return to numerical album titles, Six is THE BLACK
HEART
PROCESSION's first album to be written and recorded simultaneously with a
new THREE MILE PILOT album. As both bands now coexist for the first time
ever, coconspirators PALL JENKINS and TOBIAS NATHANIEL have steered The
Black Heart Procession into a darker, more adventurous direction. Produced
and recorded by the band over the past couple years, Six is without a doubt
the group's most emotionally resonant album since Three. Brimming with
pitch-black ballads of discarded loves and forgotten souls, the album
paints a bleak yet strangely comforting portrait of heartbreak,
self-destruction and religious allegory over some of their most inspired
songs to date, drawing a clear line from here to soul-stirring visionaries
such as Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash and Tom Waits.
Broadcast & The Focus Group - Investigate Witch Cults Of The
Radio Age CD (Warp Records) [WARP189CD] $12.25
"Blasts of distorted guitar, off-tuned analog keyboards and barreling
drums
mixed with psychedelic soundscapes and occasional disorientation are
hallmarks of the Birmingham, England-based group's sound. As the New York
Times put it, 'Broadcast's songs are full of creaks, rumbles, saw-toothed
distortion and untamed feedback. Each intrusion (is) plotted, and they let
the disruption build and sometimes take over a song in a billowing
crescendo. Within the tick-tock riffs and pop melodies, the noise seems to
break out like steam through volcanic fissures.' In anticipation of their
2010 full length, this EP is a collaboration between Trish Keenan (vocals),
James Cargill (Bass, Keyboards, Atmospherics and Production) and long time
friend of the band - Julian House, co-founder of the enigmatic UK indie
label Ghost Box Music. House, a visual artist as well as musician and
producer created Ghost Box Music and his band The Focus Group in order to
release the records and create album art he and his friends love - and as
he says, 'the purpose of (Ghost Box Music and The Focus Group) was to
create not just a record label, but an imaginary world.'"
Broke Revue (Dan Melchior) - Oldtime Future Shock CD (Milou
Studios) [1MIL] $12.25
AVAILABLE AGAIN!!! The debut album from DAN MELCHIOR's BROKE REVUE
originally "released" on the English Milou Studios label (run by
MORRISSEY's drummer, who pressed the title, but somehow never managed to
distribute it further than his living room). Fourteen tracks of
Melchior-style rock'n'roll played with bitterness, scorn, rage, and an
honest simplicity that burns bright from start to finish.
Cedric "Im" Brooks & The Light Of Saba - The Magical Light Of
Saba CD (Honest Jon's) [HJR004CD] $16.00
New 2009 edition on Honest Jon's Records (originally released in 2003).
This compilation is drawn from extremely rare singles and LPs featuring the
work of Cedric "Im" Brooks -- an old boy of the Alpha School in Kingston,
Jamaica, alongside alumni like Don Drummond, Johnny Moore and Tommy McCook
of The Skatalites, jazz-men Joe Harriott and Harold McNair, and too many
other musical giants to mention. He was a member of The Vagabonds before
Jimmy James moved the group to England, and during the '60s, toured
Caribbean hotels and clubs with various big bands and combos. His own
musical horizons -- especially new jazz music -- were increasingly distant
from these constrained commercial contexts; and he eagerly accepted an
invitation to visit a friend in the U.S. In Philadelphia, Cedric was
awe-struck by the music and vibes of the Sun Ra Arkestra. He was on the
point of joining the commune, when the birth of his second rocksteady was
in full swing on the island, and Cedric took up Ra's challenge by starting
The Mystics, to experiment with free-jazz and poetry, African robes and
dancers. During this period, Cedric's long association with Studio One
produced the hit single "Money Maker" and his musical direction of Count
Ossie's Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari was commemorated by the classic
Grounation triple-LP set, before his frustrations with purely rasta
patterns encouraged him to set up The Light of Saba, in order to go into
other aspects of African drumming. Taking leads from Hugh Masekela and Fela
Kuti, the recordings of Cedric "Im" Brooks and The Light of Saba delineate
"world music" way ahead of its time. The group offers a blend of African
and U.S., Cuban and other West Indian influences -- calypso and funk, rumba
and be-bop, nyabinghi and disco -- magnificently expressed as classic
reggae.
Chef & Ramadanman - Dubstep Allstars Vol. 07 2CD (Tempa)
[TEMPA015CD] $19.75
This is volume 7 of Tempa's original and essential Dubstep Allstars
series,
previously featuring mixes curated by DJ Hatcha, DJ Youngsta, Kode9,
N-Type, and Appleblim. Discovery, not familiarity, has been the key to the
success of this series, and this philosophy continues as Chef and
Ramadanman take the reigns on this double disc expedition which unearths
newfound pleasures aplenty. Chef, much lauded for his main room DJ sets,
employs a more show-and-tell technique for this mix. Released from the
obligations of moving a peak-time crowd, Chef affords each riddim good time
to be absorbed. Rapid-fire mixes are replaced with subtle mixer effects and
1 bar loops. In some cases, tracks are simply cut out to make way for the
next. On paper, this style could be almost nonchalant, but upon listening,
you realize nothing has been left to chance. The peak-and-trough workout
continues in earnest with Ramadanman on the second disc, which reveals an
acute sense of rhythm in both production and mixing. Testing a rookie
raver's balance, he throws elastic rhythms into the mix and collides sonics
to create multi-textured soundscapes. Consistently demonstrating impeccable
taste, Ramadanman draws on a school of artists who, like him, favor a
clean, considered sound. He throws in dashes of grime with a handful of
assured and abrupt riddims as well as the technoid, ethereal and rave-era
influenced production which has allowed him to carve his niche as a DJ.
Artists on both mixes include: Dub Mechanics, Chefal and Coki, Doctor, G
Double E, Von D, Lady Phe Phe, Skream, Kito, DJ 200F and J Kamata, Cyrus,
Mala, Mr. Lager, Alys, Distance, Conquest, Benga, Silkie, Noah D, Cotti,
Unknown, Ghost, Christine Vaccine, Kito, LD, Trolley Snatcher, Kutz, D1,
Cluekid, Untold and D. Franklin, Peverelist, Blawan, Mickey Pearce,
Footsie, Pangaea, Scuba, Shortstuff, Martyn, Headhunter, RSD, James Blake,
Quest, Joe, Earl 16, Compound One, and Mount Kimbie.
Collapsar - Beyond The Event Horizon CD (Malignant) [10643]
$13.00
In 2006, Simon Whetham was invited to perform a sound composition using
field recordings at the Collision Festival in London. Originally he
proposed sounds captured in Iceland as the raw materials for the piece, but
decided after attending meetings for the festival to create something more
site specific. After some research one feature of Peckham, the area of
London the festival is based, stood out - literally. Peckham Library. This
is a six story building that stands out from all of it's surroundings.
Copper panels cover two sides, while the rear has multi-coloured glazing
and the front has a huge four story overhang. Simon spent a day in this
imposing building, capturing sounds of everyday life in and around the
library, the sonic character, then composed with and manipulated the
sounds, and performed the work to an appreciative crowd in September 2006.
'Quiet Please' was intended to be a one-off performance, but Simon kept
returning to the recordings, finally committing the set to tape - or rather
hard drive.
Defrag - Lament Element CD (Hymen) [Y779] $16.00
RELEASE DATE: 10-19-2009
'lament element' presents a dynamic collision of power electronic
styles.
crushing distorted beats, lush melodic soundscapes, and massive sub-basses
collide with idm edits and dubstep grooves. a perfect bridge between the
distorted aggressiveness of drum'n'bass and idm's complexity. imagine
scorns minimalist grooves on speed overdosed with dubstep injections.
riding eclectic curves between styles, jeff dodson calls into battle an
assortment of punishingly heavy tunes, boosting the tension and emotion to
unimaginable dimensions. "the title itself literally means 'the reason to
sing for the dead'. although not a literal application to anything, i
intended it as a question: 'what's the reason people write passionate
music?' that and a name should just sounds great." (defrag). indeed it
does, try it!
in 2000, jeff dodson and matt flego created an
industrial/noise experiment called bitstorm. as the duo started playing out
more and more, they eventually gained the attention of several record
labels and decided to make invisible records their first home. as
production on their first full-length album 'self construct' began, jeff
and matt decided from that point forward to pen their work under the name
defragmentation. 'self construct' received critical acclaim from all over
the globe and soon the duo developed a hardcore cult following, and the fan
given name of defrag. in winter of 2004, matt flego departed defrag to
explore other paths, and soon after his departure, jeff found himself at a
crossroad. he could either shut the project down and continue his budding
career in motion graphics, or he could take a chance and keep defrag going.
committed and very stubborn, he decided to do both. in 2004 jeff picked up
the project and moved to los angeles where he continued doing motion
graphics and simultaneously built his own home studio and library or
personal audio work. he left invisible records in the hope of starting
fresh. soon after relocating, jeff decided to expand his motion graphic
business (www.rainfallfilms.com) to also include sound design and music
composition (www.runsilent.org). by using the same signature sound that
made defrag unique and applying it to his commercial work, jeff soon had a
line of 'a-list' companies and corporations begging for his music to be in
their projects. before too long jeff's music was popping up in ad
campaigns, video games, and theaters for such clients as nike, g4 tv,
ferrari, jĤgermeister and philips, as well as projects like x-men 3 the
official game, and the massively successful legend of zelda film trailer.
he was invited to speak at one of the most successful motion graphics and
music festivals in the world, the offf festival in 2009. during this time
jeff redefined his own music and the music of defrag. finally, in 2009 jeff
decided it was time to get back in the music industry and was recruited by
hymen records, where he releases the first defrag album in five years.
Dennis Tyfus & Vaast Colson - A Ella Le Gusta La Casalina (Dame
Mas Casalina!) Book (Ultra Eczema) [UE074BK] $25.75
...Como Le Encanta La Casalina "In August 2009, DT and VC (among
others)
went to a house on top of a mountain in arenas in Spain. the only thing
they did there was enjoy the brilliant cooking of Vincent Stroep and Tom
Liekens, try various alcoholic drinks, swim in the swimming pool and make
drawings and collages all week. This 240 page book collects all the
drawings and collages they made there. Raw sketches, detailed black and
white drawings, a mountain of Penelope Cruz madness, sexy times, colourful
curly noses, etc.. Limited to 500 copies."
Elm
- Nemcatacoa CD (Digitalis) [ACE028CD] $11.25
"For my money, Barn Owl is the best new band to emerge in the last five
years. Their trajectory has been meteoric, progressing musically and
conceptually in leaps and bounds. I've been thrilled to be there from the
beginning, watching and listening in awe as the duo of Jon Porras and Evan
Caminiti have carved out an impressive niche of their own. Heavy doses of
guitar savagery and tribal essence have them firmly planted at the top of
the mountain. So it makes sense to deconstruct the duo and present each as
a solo entity, soaring on their own. Elm is the name of Porras' solo
creations. His music retains the megasonics of Barn Owl, but finds his
tutelage deep in the heart of the desert. Nemcatacoa is a lonesome, epic
journey. Named after one of the deities of his Colombian heritage, his
latest full-length (and first large-scale solo release) feels huge and
endless. Walls of guitars shatter beneath the weight of the booming
percussion blasts that find their way from the caves into the light. An
acoustic guitar is mournfully plucked, the beginning of a procession of the
dead. Nemcatacoa is an album begging for somebody, anybody to find and
embrace. Porras is a master artist. The instrumentation at work here is
even more impressive when you consider it's played by a lone soul. Guitars,
Rhodes, Harmonium, Trumpet and more echo through the caverns of the ancient
Earth. Even though this album is dark and at times bleak, it never
overpowers. Traversing similar aural planes as Sunn O))) and Earth, Porras
is staking a claim all his own. As his voice wails over blankets of
guitars, he never loses sight of the golden life ahead. Incredible. Edition
of 500 CDs in silver-on-black gatefold sleeves."
End
- The Dangerous Class CD (Hymen) [10636] $17.25
I. the dangerous class is the new album by end. five years in the
making,
it is 17 tracks of audio madness bound together by themes of sex, drugs,
and rebellion. a wild mix of live instrumentation, programmed electronics,
and collaged sample fragments, the dangerous class is the soundtrack to a
world of wayward youth given to deviance, chemical transcendence and
violent transgression.
II. if there was ever a point that the communists and the capitalists could agree on, it was that the dangerous class - the lumpenproletariat - was of no use to the future. criminals, petty con-men, social parasites and hooligans, they deserved only dismissal or imprisonment. an unfortunate remnant of the past order to be swept away in the forward march of history. but of course, now - as those two great behemoths of the 20th century have become almost indistinguishable from each other - we are all, increasingly, become criminals. you are a criminal when you download music. you are a criminal when you ingest forbidden substances. you are a criminal when you try to do anything other than the expressly permitted. and you are a criminal when you protest this very order. in the new world, we are all lumpenproles.
III. the dangerous class is stitched together from the detritus of a century of recorded music, rampaging its way through countless sounds and styles - one moment it is double-time drums accompanying glitched-out rockabilly, the next swinging jazz scat overtop dirty, blown-out synths. almost no musical genre is left unexplored - surf, garage rock, speed metal, big band horn numbers, speak-easy jazz, techno thumpers, organ dirges, chamber music, bollywood sitar psychedelia, string ensembles, groovy lounge pieces and more. all of it woven into catchy pop-tunes where sunshine-voiced singers belt out infectious melodies while craggy old voices weave a narrative of decadence and forbidden pleasures.
IV. end is a little band out of new york city.
they're a noisy mix of electronics, garage rock, and old-time swing.
they've worked on records with snog and messer für frau müller, remixed
foetus, kaada, and the icarus line, and toured all over the globe with the
likes of fantomas, melt banana, and jason forrest. the dangerous class is
their newest album and is available now on hymen records."you are not born
dangerous class. you become so the moment you cease to acknowledge the
values and constraints of a world from which you have broken free: the
necessity of wage-labour." --alice becker-ho
Future Sound of London - Isness CD (Cleopatra) [147145]
$16.25
Future Sound of London returned to active recording with The Isness, a
record that trumpets a host of through-the-ages psychedelic influences,
from the Beatles to Gong to mid-'70s Pink Floyd to Spacemen 3 to the
Chemical Brothers. The opener, "Elysian Feels," has the back-masked strings
of "Tomorrow Never Knows," a surprisingly AOR guitar solo, and a few
Chemical Brothers breaks. "The Mello Hippo Disco Show" has a hippy vocal
floating over a series of funereal chords and some Mellotron effects. It's
clear that Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans are still great producers; check
out "Osho," an excellent piece of light blaxploitation funk grafted onto
film strings. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
Future Sound of London - By Any Other Name CD (Jumpin' and
Pumpin') [1554486] $21.00
By Any Other Name is an unexpected look at FSOL's early work, and an
excellent companion to theother full-lengths of the era, Accelerator,
Earthbeat and The Pulse EPs. 16 of the 17 tracks here arepreviously unheard
(the exception being Visual Attack, originally a rare 12" under the name
Aircut, nowresurrected as a Smart Systems track).
Tracks:
Tracks:
Guano Padano's music is a kind of road movie, unfolding between the scorching asphalt of Highway number 4 and the juicy smells of the peasant festivals so common in the Pianura Padana. It's a dreaming mixture of rock, psychedelia, folk and country, jazz improvisations and Morricone hints. Alessandro "Asso" Stefana and Zeno de Rossi started to work together some years ago while playing in Vinicio Capossela's band, of which they are still steady members. For this trip they are joined by Danilo Gallo, a double bass player with a dark, meaty, gutsy style, who has shared with Zeno various adventures merged in El Gallo Rojo collective, one of the most interesting experiences of Italian underground and independent jazz.
Joey Burns (Calexico):
Guano Padano starts things off with a powerful surf guitar full of muscle and might but just when you think you have a handle on this song a very erratic clarinet solo comes piping thru like a great white shark terrorizing the waves taking it to another place musically.
Jack Frost has all the comforts of home; fireplace, wood floor, banjo, whiskey soaked reverb electric guitar, drums and upright bass. Sounds like these boys have been locked for way too long and can't wait to take it out on this recording session. Cabin Fever never sounded better.
El Divino is one of those lush sounding songs that is destined to be used in a soundtrack. The song is wonderfully laid back with an excellent use of strings. The lead slide guitar melody comes in after a while setting up a momentous sense of tension with the drums. The ambience is divine. Maybe this is where the title came from?
Bull Buster bubbles and cooks with banjo grease and strange electronic snippets. It's these strange pairings in the arrangements of Guado Padano that make for a wonderful ride.
Nothing like a good cover to set the tone for an album and Guado Padano's Asso Stefana delivers a heart felt rendition that balances well with the rhumba rhythm and octavia distorted warped guitar solo. Something is rumbling beneath this road and the third verse takes off into unchartered terrain. This open approach to improvising on the original song's structure really defines the path of Guano Padano.
After the fires are set there is a wonderful break in the dynamics on this track, A Country Concept. The lap steel guitar is covered in shimmering waves of a relentless heated echo and the upright bass begins to bow the bass in sparse movements. It almost as if the rambling characters in the previous song are waking in a god forsaken landscape and the music in all its dreamlike intonations gives foreshadowing to what lies around the next bend in the road. This intuitive playing between the core band is very engaging and never dull. Must be some good moonshine or motor oil running thru the pipes.
Del Rey is built on a Hawaiian guitar motif followed by star spinning string arrangements that seem to race across a chromatic night sky. Reverb drenched lines, vibraphone tremolo and eastern influence chord changes makes this song stand out amongst the other tracks. The diminished melodies and transitions helps build a deep sense of tension throughout the song until the second half picks up with the rhythm section running down the country style romp. Again it is these wonderfully weird pairings stylistically and within the arrangements that makes this album a unique and bold outing.
With the abstract and desolate cover of Danny Boy, Guano Padano shows off their affection for traditional american music. However instead of churning out a blatant bluegrass or alternative country replica, they craft their own voice from these elements. The track is almost divided into two different songs. This jazz and contemporary approach makes me think of some of the more experimental instrumental visionaries like Sandy Bull, John Fahey and the eclectic sounds from the Lomax and Amercian Anthology of Folk Music.
Epiphany starts with organ and glockenspiel scoping out a night time scene all the while strange sounds gurgle and boil in the background making this another track destined for the soundtrack files of Hollywood's up and coming movie scores. The attention to space and contrast is highly inventive and played on. So much so, that when the Peter Gunn bass line and tremolo electric guitar come blasting in, that you feel you are listening to a completely different album and band. At the end of the song, the band gets caught up in a dub delay web that feels more like a lasso is trying to slow down an iron horse out of control. Great liveliness and performances here.
The final song is a sweet and humble finger picking guitar song called Tromp Alley reminiscent of a strange late night session ala Ry Cooder or a drunken Duane Eddy. This is the end of the album, so everyone in the band gets a chance to shine; the drummer does a Buddy Rich riff, the bass player takes the melody, before the banjo returns and the campfire seems to be complete.
If there ever was a soundtrack waiting to find it's mate in the cinematic world, this album by Guano Padano will surely find good company with the likes of Fellini, Leone, Jarmusch and Sofia Coppola.
Joey Burns September 9, 2009 Calexico Tucson, AZ
Headlights - Wildlife CD (Polyvinyl) [PRC187] $10.75
After expanding to a four-piece, HEADLIGHTS creates a fuller and more
dynamic sound on its third album that was written during a time of
misfortune. And with a new booking agent in tow (Flower Booking), good
things are ahead for Polyvinyl's hardest working band. Rather than
collapsing under the duress of a demanding year, Headlights have survived
to surface with a collection of songs praising the transience of our
friendships, lives, and aspirations. Wildlife is a work more elegiac than
rousing, where the intimacy and elegance of the songs never fail to remind
us of what has been left behind.
Holy Sons - Criminal's Return CD (Important) [IMPREC264]
$13.00
RELEASE DATE: 10-27-2009
With Holy Sons' newest full-length "Criminal's Return", Emil Amos
dabbles
in the "Revenge Fantasy" genre, going toe to toe with Roger Waters in the
race to become the most bitter songwriter in the world. If Spacemen 3
coined 'the sound of confusion' Holy Sons can stake claim to 'the sound of
disapointment'. "Criminal's Return" was recorded in various studios over
the last 2 years but also contains 3 studio songs from 2005 that feature
the last violin recording contributions of Timothy Horner (Grails) who's
since been M.I.A. Jozef Van Wissem - Ex Patris ^LP [IMPREC267:d]
Important $18.50 Release Date: 10/27/2009 Limited to 500 copies. The title
Ex Patris (from the fathers) plays on the idiomatic baroque lute
compositions presented here which emulate the classical repertoire. It also
refers to this almost forgotten instrument, which was passed on by the
fathers. The aim is to bring back and liberate the lute. The four
compositions on Ex Patris form a circular narrative of interlocking
repetitive melodic series. The follow up to Important release " It is all
that is made" kicks off with the pro apocalyptic track "The Day is Coming".
" Amor Fati" ( Love is a Religion) channels a deep interest in both love
for religion and religious belief in love. Multiple palindromes are
juxtaposed and linger. " Son of Dawn" consists of mirrored lute harmonics
that serve as an intro to the 13 minute elegiac 'After the fire has
devoured all it will consume itself '. The piece builds and releases
tension and puts layer upon layer of ecstatic melody. At the end even the
work itself gets devoured but it remains eternal, with no potential
beginning and without end. Merzbow - 13 Japanese Birds Volume 10
[IMPREC270:d] Important $13.00 Release Date: 10/27/2009 Merzbow's 13
Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier
Messaien's Catalogue D'Oiseaux. Beginning in January 2009 one volume of 13
Japanese Birds will be released each month. The 13th and final volume will
be released January 2010. Each volume will be a one time pressing of 1000
copies. Available from Important Records is a deluxe hand made numbered
bamboo box to hold the 13 cd collection. Cover art by Jenny Akita.
Author, activist, painter and sound artist Masami Akita had been at the
foreground of experimental music for over 25 years. Inspired by psycedelic
rock, free jazz, early electronic composition as well the physical arts,
especial Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau, Masami Akita has created a musical
language all his own.
Hylos - Consuetudines CD (Malignant) [10644] $13.00
The alluring debut from Leipzig Germanyís Hyios, Consuetudines offers 7
lengthy compositions of cold ritual drones, arching trajectories, and
visceral descents into subterranean caverns, where rich, kinetic textures
and deep resonant tones move and morph in a fluid, serpentine fashion,
sprinkled with the debris of an ancient culture and something more
otherworldly and primordial. Leipzig has historically proven to be fertile
ground for dark ambient and Consuetudines continues in the fine tradition
set forth by such notable acts as Inade and Herbst9. In 6 panel digipak,
mastered by Secret Lab. A great new discovery..
Imaad Wasif - Voidist CD (Tee Pee) [TPE110] $13.50
RELEASE DATE: 10-13-2009
***IMAAD WASIF is a rock musician who came of age in the Coachella
Valley
of the 1990s. Wasif kept his sound stripped down in his revered indie rock
outfits LOWERCASE and ALASKA. During these early years, he also played live
and in the studio with THE FOLK IMPLOSION. In 2006 Kill Rock Stars released
Wasif's self-titled solo debut, an acoustic psych gem which had a lean,
hushed intensity. Around the same time he was enlisted as a touring
guitarist and opening act for the YEAH YEAH YEAHS. Wasif then self-released
Strange Hexes in March 2008, which was recorded with his band TWO PART
BEAST (BOBB BRUNO and ADAM GARCIA) and will be re-released by Tee Pee
Records in 2010. Wasif's latest opus, The Voidist, recorded again with the
help of Two Part Beast. The album features guests DALE CROVER (MELVINS) and
GREG BURNS (RED SPAROWES) and was recorded by CHAD BAMFORD (WEEZER) with
additional recordings by MATHIAS SCHNEEBERGER (OBSESSED, GUTTER TWINS).
Having gained a reputation for his intense live shows while opening for
RTX, The Raconteurs, Neko Case, Arthur Lee's Love and Sebadoh, Wasif has
plans for an extensive tour in the fall of 2009. Imaad Wasif can also be
found playing guitar on "Little Shadow" from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' latest
album It's Blitz!, and Lou Barlow's new solo album, Goodnight Unknown. His
collaboration with Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Bradford Cox (Deerhunter),
and "Little" Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs, Dead Weather) on the score for
the Spike Jonze directed film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are hits
theaters in October.
Impediments - Impediments CD (Happy Parts) [HPR998] $16.00
RELEASE DATE: 10-19-2009
"Impediments out of Oakland, California, play gloriously in-complex
scuzz-punk -- With its blasted out bass riffs, Animals-style drums and
guitars as shredded as Iggy's bloody chest, their vintage sounding debut is
a welcome change from the calculated cool." -- AM New York
"The
Impediments, still in their teens, are pretty straight-up from the
Dolls/Dead Boys school of snotty rave-ups, the youthful energy brings a
sense of the new to it all" -- Brooklyn Vegan
Jandek - What Was Out There Disappeared CD (Corwood Industries)
[COR0799] $7.25
The title of track three, "Will There Be No More Photos," prompts an
interesting question: just how many photos does this guy have of himself
throughout the different stages of his life? What will happen when he runs
out? Miraculously, after all these years, this album cover is another
winner: just in time for the fall season, we are treated to a handsome
young Corwood representative standing in a yard covered in beautiful fall
foliage. Looking sharp in a suit and tie, he looks ready for prom. Or a
funeral... And the music? Well, Jandek is Jandek.
Keith Canisius - Waves CD (Quince Records) [qrcp75] $14.50
RELEASE DATE: 11-03-2009
On this totally self produced album, Keith Canisius (Rumskib) takes his
romantic ocean dream pop one step further from his previous album Ferris
Wheel Makeout (2008), making it sound even more psychedelic and ambient on
one side, yet more poppy, melodic and modern on the other. His great sense
for creating atmospheres and melodies together with a sharp structural
awareness will take you places you've never been before. Yet again Canisius
often seeks the explosive moments in his music, but only with an
exceptional sense for timing where the listener would least expect it.
Listen to the 7 min. dream pop anthem with guest appearance by Isol Misenta
(Entre Rios, Alsace Lorraine, Isol/Zypce) and you will know what we're
talking about. Canisius's music has an emotional depth and musical vision
that seems quite unique which allows him to work with a wide musical pallet
without limitation and specific genre loyalty.
Anything can happen and
will on a Canisius album, often with a classic sounding underline to it,
but always pushing the boundaries and seeking those key moments where
thoughts loose their sense of basic control.
Linda Guilala - Bugles Infinitos CD (Elefant) [ER1146]
$16.00
RELEASE DATE: 10-01-2009
JUNIPER MOON were one of the most skillful composers of punk-pop in
Spain
ever and their international reputation corroborated this. Four years have
passed since JUNIPER MOON broke up but their fire has not yet gone out. A
'best of' compilation will soon be released in Japan.
From the ashes of Junpier Moon rise LINDA GUILALA. Three years ago Ivġn and Eva launched into composition with immediate, addictive melodies of maximum coolness, within the best pop tradition of the new Spanish wave, the insolent energy of HELEN LOVE and the captivating passion and dense textures of CHARLOTTES, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, PALE SAINTS.
At last we are lucky enough to have their debut cd 'Infinite Loops', a demonstration of how to understand the pop music few have elevated to this level, knowing how to balance youthful energy and twee passion with the solid instinct of the most classical pop music, the most luminous technpop with that hopeless punk sound and above all the misty shine of shoegaze atmospheres.
Imagine the first singles
of LUSH, of MY BLOODY VALENTINE, of RIDE, of those bands that caused such a
huge vibrition at the beginning of the 90s. LINDA GUILALA in the end leave
you with the sensation of having listened to a handful of tremendously
addictive pop compositions like you'e never heard before. Take the test.
Lingouf - Ange et Gruikk CD (Ant-Zen) [10635] $17.25
lingouf's second album on ant-zen illustrates a further exploration
into
this artist's very special aural and visual thinking. to him, music and the
corresponding artwork are allegories of a general emotion - moments of
happiness brought by love, but importantly happiness overlaid with the
knowledge of sadness, melancholy and loss. 'ange' (angel) and 'gruikk'
(lingoufs onomatopoeia for distorted mind / thoughts) can be seen as
ensigns for this symbiotic emotion. which is also represented on the front
cover: a homage to the 1594 french painting, 'portrait of gabrielle
d'estrées and duchesse de villars'.
on this release's six tracks,
lingouf allows each composition to blossom and transform. from the megrim
of 'le carnaval des animaux' (influenced by the programme music cycle of
the same name composed by camille saint saëns in 1886), the drifty bass
pulses/beat shuffles on 'ange et gruikk' and 'garage', the straight and
partly distorted floor burners 'vifoogy' and 'st-geniez' and lastly the
broken beats and rich melodic layers of 'dorpramepasu'. 'ange et gruikk'
abducts the listener into a very unique cosmos of deep spheres, sounds,
emotional atmospheres and hypnotizing sonic playfulness. an audiolicious
mélange of ambient, technoid and industrial music.
Machinefabriek - Loops for Voerman CD (Machinefabriek) [MF003]
$10.25
RELEASE DATE: 10-12-2009
CDR limited to 500. Music for a sculpture by Rob Voerman, composed by
Rutger Zuydervelt. Originally presented on a three way speaker system, 11
and 12 September, in Beeldenpark Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht (NL). This is a
manufactured cd edition, following a very limited cdr edtition. What
Boomkat said aout Loops for Voerman: "The more Rutger Zuydervelt's output
has slowed down, the more he seems to fascinate. Despite only delivering a
handful of new works this year, each new release has brought with it
something new to the table, with this remarkable 15 minute disc containing
the most intensely affecting Machinefabriek recording since last year's
career-defining 'Dauw'. 'Loops For Voerman' was recorded as part of an art
installation/sculpture by Rob Voerman but, oddly, doesn't rely on any
visual association for its unique, almost harrowing quality. Bowed strings
take on a metallic, razor-like identity, with vocal shards and found sounds
arranging themselves throughout the looped cycle of the track, each time
re-positioning themselves with an almost imperceptible shift of emphasis.
The technical effect is similar to that created by Deathprod on the
incredible 'Treetop Drive', albeit with a completely different sound
palette, but the track is no less impressive in its execution, exposing
ever expansive stretches of sound as the track unfolds. Originally
performed on a three-way speaker system, one can only imagine the impact on
the listener with all that extra movement of sound, intensifying an already
overpowering aural experience and delivering one of the most valuable
artefacts yet in the already mightily impressive Machinefabriek canon. Very
highly recommended."
Maja S.K. Ratkje + Lasse Marhaug - Music For Gardening CD (Pica
Disk) [PICA009] $17.50
The fourth entry in MAJA S.K. RATKJE and LASSE MARHAUG's Music For...
collaborative series. After Shopping (2002), Loving (2004) and Faking
(2005) comes Gardening, inspired by Ratkje's new life in the countryside.
Seven tracks meant to inspire spend on one's hand and knees, fidgeting with
dirt, taking care of their plants.
Maniac/Liles/Czral - Det Skjedde Noe Når Du Var I Belgia CD
(Dirter Promotions) [DPROM074CD] $16.00
Dirter Promotions presents a recording that has been caught in a
13-year
time warp and within the bizarre narrative of a humble Norwegian discussing
"topical Belgian issues" from the very edge of West Yorkshire. This very
strange recording sees former Mayhem front man Maniac (Skitliv, Sehnsucht,
Bomberos) teaming up with Andrew Liles and Czral (Virus, Ved Buens Ende,
Aura Noir, Dødheimsgard) to release an album that he and Czral began
working on in 1996. Det Skjedde Noe Når Du Var I Belgia ("Something
Happened While You Were In Belgium") occurred through happenstance: "It
wasn't something we expected to do at all," explained Maniac. "Czral and I
had recorded the original material all those years ago but other
commitments had meant that we were never able to get round to finishing it
off and releasing it, and I'd brought it with me to the UK for my manager
to listen to just out of interest, but it was a DAT tape and she didn't
have the right equipment for it. I was also visiting Andrew Liles who was
mastering the new Skitliv album, and preparing to master the new Sehnsucht
album, so we converted the tape in his studio. Andrew's enthusiasm for what
he heard got the better of him, and we started working on it straight
away." A sneak-peak track reveals warped electronics matched with keyboard
swirls, found-sound voices, drones and other faraway, ringing effects. An
intriguing project that sees the best of black metal's past merge with
experimental/sound art, forming an intriguing, chimerical collaboration.
Marina Rosenfeld - Plastic Materials CD (Room40) [RM430]
$14.75
RELEASE DATE: 10-19-2009
Over the past decade, Marina Rosenfeld's work has come to represent one of the most progressive approaches to experimental sound emanating from New York. Rosenfeld is equally known as a composer for large-scale performances and groundbreaking turntablist. Her sonic palette - entirely drawn from hand-crafted dub plates she imprints with blips of vinyl static, bursts of instrumental noise, conversation, and other audio detritus - evokes both the ecstatic electronic artifice of early electronic composers like Morton Subotnik and the post-punk ferocity of Kim Gordon.
On Plastic Materials, Rosenfeld creates a compelling and dense journey through ringing, magical electroacoustic structures that are carefully overlaid with piano, voice and deconstructed language. Her compositions evoke both the radical poetics of modernism and free improv and, with it's delicate underlay of hiss, vinyl static and other aural signifiers of recording, the unlikely preservation of the ephemeral made possible by vinyl.
"Cuz' I Cannot Find My Way," "Hey, Girl," and "I Treated Myself" are excerpted from "Teenage Lontano",Rosenfeld's acclaimed "cover version" for teenaged choir, of GyĶrgy Ligeti's 1967 orchestral masterpiece Lontano, premiered by the Whitney Museum in New York in 2008.
PRESS: "I felt the opening of a portal between a failed utopian past and the possibility that the more real present is already something to love. I was transported." --New York Magazine (review of Teenage Lontano)
"Brilliantâ~@¦ hauntingâ~@¦ a heady mix of the strange and the familiarâ~@¦The way in which Rosenfeld succeeded in transforming what is in essence an antisocial behaviour (listening to an iPod) into the social activity of singing together, into self-expression, transparency and vulnerability, was almost heartbreaking....' --Theater of Found Sounds (review of Teenage Lontano)
"Seminal" --Rhizome (on Sheer Frost Orchestra)
Miss Autopsy - Caterpillar CD (Lens Records) [10642] $12.00
In 2006, Simon Whetham was invited to perform a sound composition using
field recordings at the Collision Festival in London. Originally he
proposed sounds captured in Iceland as the raw materials for the piece, but
decided after attending meetings for the festival to create something more
site specific. After some research one feature of Peckham, the area of
London the festival is based, stood out - literally. Peckham Library. This
is a six story building that stands out from all of it's surroundings.
Copper panels cover two sides, while the rear has multi-coloured glazing
and the front has a huge four story overhang. Simon spent a day in this
imposing building, capturing sounds of everyday life in and around the
library, the sonic character, then composed with and manipulated the
sounds, and performed the work to an appreciative crowd in September 2006.
'Quiet Please' was intended to be a one-off performance, but Simon kept
returning to the recordings, finally committing the set to tape - or rather
hard drive.
Mudboy - Mort Aux Vaches CD (Staalplaat) [MAV062CD] $20.25
"CD, 3-panel wooden cover limited 500."
Nick Oliveri - Death Acoustic CD (Impedance Music) [IMP012]
$12.75
You may know him as the long haired bass player on the early KYUSS
albums
or as the mysterious REX EVERYTHING in THE DWARVES. Others will know him as
one of the creative partners behind QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE and more
recently the screaming front man of MONDO GENERATOR. He is of course, NICK
OLIVERI. A man that really needs no introduction to rock fans across the
world. Throughout his career with the aforementioned bands, Nick has found
time to play intimate, solo acoustic shows. Just him and his acoustic
guitar. Blending songs he has written for the bands he has played in,
specifically written songs for the solo shows and well chosen covers, Nick
has showcased what a great songwriter and musician he is. Over the last six
months he has been recording in this format and now brings to you his new
solo album, Death Acoustic.
No
and the Maybes - No and the Maybes CD (Quince Records) [qrcp73] $14.50
RELEASE DATE: 11-03-2009
No and the Maybes are an eclectic three-piece from Copenhagen, Denmark,
on
a mission to save and reclaim the catchy melody from wedding singers and
Eurovision.
This Danish chamber pop ensemble have set their sights on creating vivid, engaging yet easygoing music with an after-kick, taking inspiration from 60s sounds through to more thoughtful 80s New Wave music. No and the Maybes make it their obligation to bring something fresh and exciting to the table, celebrating that little extra something to catch your attention and make you fall in love: surprising hand claps, finger snaps, a choir arrangement or an unexpected instrumentation.
Their DIY principles mean that everything they produce is lovingly stamped with their own unique signature, be it their music and videos. Similarly their live set breaks down the conventional lead singer set-up and gives way to a more democratic use of the stage, the band forming a line with a standing drummer and all members sharing vocal duties.
No and the Maybes' eponymous debut album was released in Denmark on the reputed A:larm Music label (The Raveonettes, Mew, Band of Horses, The Dĸ to name but a few) towards the end of last year and led to the band hitting no.1 in the Alternative Radio charts, being nominated at the Danish Music Awards, performing on national television and being lauded across the press and media. And lately their single "Petra Petrified" was selected "Single of the Week" on the BBC. 2009 sees the band bring their warm electro-tinged pop to the Americas for the first time.
"Their sunny vocals lean
towards The Magic Numbers, but instrumentally they evoke the early Cure,
1979 XTC and Aztec Camera. They're a winner." --MOJO Magazine, UK
Pyramids with Nadja - Pyramids with Nadja CD (Hydra Head)
[HDH194CD] $16.25
"Pyramids With Nadja, is like a massive collaborative effort between
Pyramids, Nadja and a number of otherwise established musicians. His
instrumentation might be described as an energized ambient, infused with an
intelligent ear for avant-garde metal and an almost indiscernible adherence
to a sort of pop sensibility. PWN is the kinda guy who would successfully
meld the still unparalleled compositional methodology developed in
Pyramids' s/t album with Nadja's trademarked dirge-like shoegaze on a
record and then chalk up the favorable outcome to the fact that all members
of Pyramids (F. Coloccia, M. Dean, M. Kraig, R. Loren, D. William) and
Nadja (Aidan Baker & Leah Buckereff) perform on all four tracks on the
record."
Radian - Chimeric CD (Thrill Jockey) [THR224CD] $13.75
"It had been four years since Juxtaposition, our last record and one
year
of a self-chosen absence from the stage, that we met again to work on
Chimeric. This break was a necessary step to leave any routine behind us,
to restructure the working process, to rethink the concept of this band and
its music. It was always a driving force within the band's history to enter
new territories, like it happened with the transition from the self-titled
EP to the abstract minimalism of TG11 and finally in the more colourful
rhythms of the Rec.Extern and Juxtaposition period. But this was done and
we needed to go further, exploring forms and sounds we had not been dealing
with so far - and adapting them to our system. Chimeric is not a polished
album. Within our context it is raw, broken, even dark sometimes. Steady,
multiple rhythms, layered on top of each other disappear into chaos and
turn back into discreet structures in the next moment. References of rock
music, executed with the precision of a sequencer; mutated, restructured. A
lot on this album is about control and the loss of control. The risk of
failure. This was probably always in our music, but kept in a very stable
form, sometimes even hidden. But Chimeric is much more free. Some of the
longer pieces are composed of very different parts and different colours
along a continuous timeline. They tend to evolve in a narrative form and
are moving through various scenes and surroundings, which is also present
in the spacial relationship between the instruments. One could see the
album as one continuous story, where some elements are passed from one
piece to the next and then serve as the base for a completely new scenario.
The result was something unpredictable and unstable, even for us." --
Martin Brandlmayr, Stefan Németh, John Norman (Radian)
Rorschach Garden, The - A Place for The Lost CD (Bazooka Joe)
[10637] $17.50
this album offers up the characteristic minimal electro pop trg is well
known for. a remarkable featured sound is the predominant use of a korg's
ds10 - a virtual music production studio for a nintendo ds which combines
legendary eighties analogue synth tones with today's editing options - the
result is 21st century electro. exemplary song writing skills and a mastery
of electronic equipment culminates into 14 marvellous tracks that are both
captivating and deep. Once again the rorschach garden offer nostalgia and
sweetness with a dark overlay - making this album a genuine 'place for the
lost'. join them there!
Seven Storey Mountain - Nate Wooley, Paul Lytton, David Grubbs
CD (Important) [IMPREC238] $13.00
RELEASE DATE: 10-27-2009
The Seven Storey Mountain is a trans-generation group of highly
recognized
figures in modern music. Paul Lytton, for instance, has been playing drums
with Evan Parker since 1969. David Grubbs is recognized for his work with
Jim O'Rourke in Gastr Del Sol, Bastro, Squirrel Bait & extensive solo work.
Nate Wooley is one of the most exciting young trumpet players currently
working and he's collaborated with Taylor Ho Bynum, Peter Evans, Mary
Halvorson & many others. Wooley is a memberof Blue Collar,
Attach/Adorn/Decay & the Nate Wooley Quartet. The Seven Storey Mountain is
one of his finest compositions to date.
The Seven Storey Mountain is an attempt to represent the ecstatic experience as described by Thomas Merton in his book of the same name, from the uncertainty, to a kind of elation, through the "dark night of the soul" and through to a feeling of peace and communion. It is by no means a religious work, nor is the ecstatic experience singular to Christianity, but is found in many disciplines, religious or otherwise, and most definitely in music from the opening chords of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" to the free jazz movement of the 60s right on up to the modern day noise work, there is an element of the ecstatic experience which draws the listener in.
"I wrote the piece with the idea that it could be performed by a rotating cast of musical personalities over the tape. I was lucky enough to premiere it with two wildly diverse and equally fascinating musicians in Paul Lytton and David Grubbs. Paul is a true experimentalist and a legend of improvisation. He has reshaped how drummers think and during our 2007 tour he completely refocused my knowledge about music improvisation with a capital I. David is an iconoclastic songwriter and soundmaker. After working with him on a few projects of his own, I've grown to respect his complete understanding of his own musical aesthetic and his ability to take fine details and weave a powerful ambient whole out of them, while letting the musicians around him contribute unfettered.
The piece is the result of a commission from the
Festival of New Trumpet Music, with support from the Greenwall Foundation,
in New York for 2007 and was performed to close that festival at Abrons rt
Center at the Henry Street Settlement." -- Nate Wooley 2009
Shindig - Shindig! Vol. 2, Issue 13 Nov-Dec 2009 Magazine+CD
(Shindig) [SHINV2#13] $8.50
"Procol Harum - First of a two-part exclusive on the former Southend
R&B
wailers who invented progressive rock and cut the most successful single of
all time. Heron - Recently reborn pastoral '70s folk heroes whose influence
just gets bigger and bigger. British Exploitation Films - A second helping
of vintage sleaze, horror and weirdness and the wild sounds that
soundtracked it. The Litter - From 'Action Woman' to Emerge -- the
Minneapolis noiseniks exposed at last. Nik Turner - Twenty questions for
Hawkwind founder, still standing after 40 years in deep space. Pete Atkin -
Following the reissue of his '70s solo albums, one of our most talented and
unsung singer/songwriter/raconteurs pops in for a chat."
Simon Whetham - Quiet Please CD (Lens Records) [10641]
$12.00
In 2006, Simon Whetham was invited to perform a sound composition using
field recordings at the Collision Festival in London. Originally he
proposed sounds captured in Iceland as the raw materials for the piece, but
decided after attending meetings for the festival to create something more
site specific. After some research one feature of Peckham, the area of
London the festival is based, stood out - literally. Peckham Library. This
is a six story building that stands out from all of it's surroundings.
Copper panels cover two sides, while the rear has multi-coloured glazing
and the front has a huge four story overhang. Simon spent a day in this
imposing building, capturing sounds of everyday life in and around the
library, the sonic character, then composed with and manipulated the
sounds, and performed the work to an appreciative crowd in September 2006.
'Quiet Please' was intended to be a one-off performance, but Simon kept
returning to the recordings, finally committing the set to tape - or rather
hard drive.
Solar Powered People - Living Through the Low CD (Quince
Records) [qrcp74] $14.50
RELEASE DATE: 11-03-2009
Solar Powered People is a four piece rock/shoegaze band from the
Central
Valley of California. They are poised to launch into a bright future that
should eclipse their already well accomplished past. The sound the band
produces is enveloping, warm and powerful with just enough grit to leave a
few claw marks. Some of the songs cut through the atmosphere with pace and
power, while others sweep and swirl, wrapping the listener into a haze of
sound. The various levels of volume, pace and space are anchored by two
consistent elements. The always-solid rhythm section provided by Coscia and
McKinnon give every song a sturdy backbone. Coscia's powerful drumming and
McKinnon's tasteful bass lines are the rails on which each song can
successfully roll from. The second consistent element is the melodic hooks
layered into the guitars. There are no pointless notes in Morris' or
Pennington's guitar lines. The weaving of guitar parts gives the listener
many layers to uncover while listening.
Solar Powered People has a crafted sound that comes from the vast experience found in each respective member's past. Taking these experiences and combining them with a shared love for such bands as The Cure, Slowdive, Tears For Fears, Failure, and Joy Division to name a few, the members of Solar Powered People feel they have found themselves a musical home. This musical home has been appreciated by many around the world over the last few years. Their second full-length, Living Through the Low, was recorded by Matt McCord, who also worked with Cake, the Deftones and Team Sleep.
"I fell asleep one night with my headphones on listening to "Living Through the Low", and I had slow motion dreams of Alpine avalanches , followed by vintage James Bond high speed chases. This music is awesomeâ~@¦it's good for the imagination." --Jason Lytle of Grandaddy
"love love the new record...there are no
accidents i hear- lots of really beautiful stuff on hereâ~@¦" --Jeff
Martin of Idaho
Spiracle - Anata 2CD (Helen Scarsdale) [HMS017] $14.50
HITOSHI KOJO (aka SPIRACLE) finds it difficult to fall asleep. Ananta
urges
the listener toward a dreamless sleep-state, while reflecting the glowing
warmth of a blossoming sunrise. To finely tuned drones extracted from a
Dilruba and a Sarangi, Kojo merges sympathetic field recordings and other
tonal interferences alongside the instrumental sounds. The results are
elliptically static drones that brightly shimmer with hues of gold,
crimson, and aquamarine. One of the two variations of Ananta was released
in 2006 as a micro-edition CDR through Mystery Sea; tiny churning textures
stream along a linear path, nearly achieving infinity, which happens to be
the translation from Sanskrit of "ananta." If you find Roland Kayn, Yoshi
Wada, or Charlemagne hypnotic, you'll want to check this out. The Strato
Version of Ananta is previously unreleased. It bends and undulates around a
fundamental drone, while maintaining the sun-flecked glints magnified in
the Mystery Sea version. Limited to 300 copies
Starless & Bible Black - The Shape Of The Shape CD (Locust)
[LOCUST118CD] $13.50
"On their sophomore release, The Shape of the Shape, Manchester,
England's
Starless & Bible Black have drawn together the sounds of '70s Topanga
Canyon country-rock, '80s Mancunian jangle, and space-age psych tinged
drones to make a dynamic, warm and woodsy second album. Gone are the
dulcimers and banjos of the first record, replaced by an electrifying wall
of Telecaster and Moog, and standing in the center of this bold, widescreen
sound resides the earthy and husky voice of Hélène Gautier. Recorded at
Bryn Derwen within the wilds of the Snowdonian mountains, and during all
night sessions in the relative tranquility of their local village hall,
Shape Of The Shape is an album of contrasting styles, themes and approaches
that coheres beautifully into a seamless entity. We get guided through
verses and choruses of swamp rock, gothic bluesy chanson and smoky acoustic
ballads, as well as a jazz-folk tinged instrumental -- after all, the band
take their name from the classic 1965 Stan Tracey cut -- but the apogee of
this collection is the driving drone-choral opus, Les Furies - sung in
French, this is a very Gallic observation of after hours culture. And while
this album traverses all these different styles, the band never deny the
importance of a fine tune and a fine song."
Steve Roach - Afterlight CD (Timeroom Editions) [10645]
$15.25
After the stillness comes the AFTERLIGHT. Created in the Spring of
2009, in
the afterglow of DYNAMIC STILLNESS, this long-form piece delivers the
listener deep inside a multi-dimensional realm of forming clouds, an
endless expanse with no boundaries or sense of temporal limits. Amorphous
strands of harmonic lumina emerge and recede in a constant unfolding and
reconfiguring state for the duration of this pure atmospheric suspension.
This piece, along with its two companion releases DESTINATION BEYOND and
IMMERSION: FOUR were created over the the same time period, and all share a
common sense of breath, interconnection and pursuit of timelessness.
Refined over several months, the piece was kept in constant low-volume
playback during sleep, rest and times of reflection. The ongoing experience
of living with the piece, and shaping it before its release into the world,
has become a vital part of Steve's immersion process, going back to 1984's
STRUCTURES FROM SILENCE.
Steve Roach - Immersion: Four CD (Timeroom Editions) [10646]
$15.25
After months of distillation, IMMERSION: FOUR has been released from
its
vessel in a slow and steady flow, as if streaming forth from an infinite
sound fountain. IMMERSION: FOUR embraces the senses with the warmth and
micro subtle perceptual shifts that has defined the Immersion series. No
beginning, no end, designed for infinite playback mode, IMMERSION: FOUR is
a steady state zone created specifically as a tone meditation, enhancing
the living space as sonic incense. Gently immersive and especially
effective at low volume, the non-dynamic nature of this space supports
focused day and night activities. The Immersion series is perfect for
creative states, sleeping, reading, long hours at the computer and other
functions where traditional music could be considered invasive.
Sueter - Practicas En El Circuito de Bahrein CDS (Clifford
Records) [clif03] $11.00
RELEASE DATE: 10-01-2009
The first time I heard this single with no more information than "this
is
the debut of some guys from Granada" I started tiptoeing my head and
said...Who is behind this? I ruled out that something on this level could
be the first album of some unknown people, so I had to find the brain in
the dark of this fact. Some Planeta off the orbit? Some member from La
Habitaciijn Roja looking for their own room? A stroke of genious
fromNiıos Mutantes? The reasons of my doubts are these four songs
embracing the EP PrÄ¡cticas en el circuito de Bahréin.
"Quizġ Sea El Modo" is an immediate hit with an irresistible chorus, infectious and right to your guts. Sang in an impeccable two voices and chorused by thousand of people in a gig, it is the one which make a career such as La Habitaciijn Roja, Niıos Mutantes or even Deluxe.
"Fan de la Fijrmula 1" is able to remember some hits from Los Planetas at the same time, plenty of smartness to find out the keys that make them working out and synthesizing them in a perfect song denomined as furious pop that quickens between the sweet noise and the sharp melodic punk. In addition to a contagious dynamic, it has an end endowed with a kind of music that is not easily reachable.
"Platillos Volantes" explores another type of driving, including ripped on an acoustic and an terrible building pop with a sober control of energy to free the strength in the most suitable moment with another inerring chorus. Lori Meyers reached this with two albums.
If we talk about maturity and pop wisdom, "Vacaciones", a power pop song that could have been remained in the punk-pop movement of its powerful and sticky chorus but it is going furthermore with another lesson in the musical arrangements and its composition, playing with rhythms and armonies as if they belong to Crowded House or Popsicle.
There is a truly talent locked in this four songs. And, although they have been supported by Juano(Bombones) in the production and it has been recorded with Jordi Gil ( the secret weapon of Sr Chinarri), it has clearly confirmed that Suéter are a group of boys from Granada that one year ago they were in a demo contest and this is their EP debut album. There is something in the water running down the Alhambra which produces the best Spanish pop. GUILLERMO Z DEL Ä~AGUILA
Tracklist: 1. Quizġ Sea el Modo 2. Fan de la Fijrmula 1 3. Platillos
Volantes 4. Vacaciones
Sufjan Stevens + Osso - Run Rabbit Run CD (Asthmatic Kitty)
[AKR49] $13.25
In 2001, SUFJAN STEVENS followed up his debut album, A Sun Came, with
Enjoy
Your Rabbit, a series of fourteen instrumentals programmatically inspired
by the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. Much later, in 2006, BRYCE DESSNER
(THE NATIONAL, CLOGS) suggested that Sufjan re-arrange the entirety of
Enjoy Your Rabbit for OSSO, a string quartet that had previously
contributed strings to Sufjan's Illinois and My Brightest Diamond's Bring
Me The Workhorse. The result is Run Rabbit Run.
Duck Baker Project, The - The Ducks Palace CD (Incus Records)
[INCUS059CD] $18.50
Featuring: Duck Baker (guitar), Derek Bailey (guitar), Cyro Baptista
(percussion), Roswell Rudd (trombone) and John Zorn (saxophone). Tracks
Improv 1 & 5 recorded at The Knitting Factory New York 1993; Tracks Improv
2,4 & 6 recorded London 2002; Track 3. The Blues recorded at the Outpost
Alberquerque 2004; Track 7 Pavement Blues recorded at Tonic New York 2002.
Thomas Function - In The Valley Of Sickness CD (Fat Possum)
[FP1189] $12.00
RELEASE DATE: 10-13-2009
***THOMAS FUNCTION is the ever-advancing pursuit of impossible
satisfaction. Emerging from Alabama in 2007, the band has played countless
shows, released six singles and a full-length, and now deliver their Fat
Possum debut.
Triorganico - Convivência CD (Now Again) [NA5037CD] $15.00
"'Triorganico's debut... is something you'd expect to hear floating
from a
smoky Bossa Nova club in the 1950s -- not downtown LA. Triorganico finds
comfort in history and hindsight.' -- Wax Poetics. A Southern Californian
garage-band influenced by music of the Latin American diaspora? Forty years
ago that might have described a psych outfit, or an ensemble that emulated
Santana. In 2009 it describes a wondrous little combo who has returned to
Latin jazz's raw, minimalist roots and have recorded an album drenched in
history, yet defiantly modern: Convivencia. Triorganico -- Pablo Calogero
on saxophones and woodwinds, Ricardo 'Tiki' Pasillas on percussion and
Fabiano do Nascimento on guitar -- formed in Calogero's garage. 'We would
simply get together to listen to music, write music, share ideas,' the Rio
de Janeiro bred do Nascimento states. The band set up a weekly residency in
Downtown LA, playing a variety of original compositions and cover songs
from their favorite musicians. Songs by Brazilian legends featured
prominently. The idea to record happened organically and using what the
group describes as 'guerrilla tactics.' The result is a wholesome album
that rambles purposefully through the wonders of Brazilian bossa nova
influenced jazz and spreads into the musical melting pots at the center of
its creator's multi-cultures."
Underwater Tea Party - What Crisis? This Crisis CD (Green UFOs)
[GREEN037CD] $18.00
RELEASE DATE: 10-12-2009
"What Crisis? This Crisis", the second album from UNDERWATER TEA PARTY,
is
one of the most heartbreaking collection of songs you can find in SpainÂ's
independent scene. A collection of singles with an outstanding technical
polish and a touch from almost every branch of the pop music tree, from
Gainsbourg to Stereolab, from Beatles to Delgados, from Pink Floyd to
Flaming Lips. The album was recorded in Madrid but the band flew to Chicago
where local legend John McEntire (Tortoise, The Sea and the Cake,
Stereolab) mixed it, and Jason Ward (sound engineer for The Shins, Stephen
Malkmus or Iron and Wine) took care of the mastering. UNDERWATER TEA PARTY
played CMJ in 2008 and SXSW in 2009.
Various Artists - Peacemakers Inc. 1 CD (Invasion Wreck Chords)
[10638] $18.75
Invasion proudly presents new project - "Peacemakers Inc.". Now three
bands
join forces for do not let this World to die easy. And it will be done
again and again. Every time our invasion will be powerful and wild. Every
time we will cut something off from this World, and we promise you - that
will be very important parts. In this noizzze guerilla it's better to be on
Peacemakers' side. Now listen, listen with all your attention, cause we
will not say it twice. One... CONFIG.SYS / CONTAGIOUS ORGASM /
BOOT-SECTOR-VIRUZ - hard, rich, killing... Very beautiful. From militant
bolero (CONFIG.SYS) through sensual contemplate (CONTAGIOUS ORGASM) to free
flight (BOOT-SECTOR-VIRUZ). Massive technoid beats, melodic synths, deep
ambient soundscapes, distorted dancefloor kicks and destructive beauty'
atmosphere - that what first "Peacemakers Inc." stands for. Join noizzze
guerilla!
Various Artists - Peacemakers Inc. 2 CD (Invasion Wreck Chords)
[10639] $18.75
Invasion presents second part of "Peacemakers Inc.".
Without any
rules,
without any authority, without compromises and without return tickets. Pure
energy. Absolute freedom. Passions, desires and emotions. Wild, violent and
sexy. Blood, sweat and tears. Hysteria, chaos and panic. Uncontrolled.
Unlimited. Untouchables. Young and beautiful. Every day like last. Noise,
industrial, punk, true rock'n'roll. F*** you all! All this words about the
bands which made second part of "Peacemakers Inc." - CHRYSALIDE,
AMBASSADOR21, PUNISH YOURSELF. And all this words about their split-album.
Various Artists - Mr. Toytown Presents Vol. 3 CD (Toytown
Recordings) [TT1003CD] $22.25
"The long awaited third volume of this highly regarded series continues
to
explore the wonderful world of obscure and unknown 45s released in Europe
during the late '60s and early '70s. You won't find a more eclectic
compilation anywhere! Psych-pop, weird psychedelia, folk-pop, popsyke,
sunshine-pop, soft-pop, toytown pop, ...name it as you want but they're
simply just cool songs that deserve to be rediscovered. This time the focus
is on UK sounding psych-pop but there are still weird, obscure and fuzzy
sounds, featuring bands from UK, Spain, Belgium, France, Paraguay, Holland,
USA... Highlights are the Barret-esque sounds of Fuzzy Phases, the Beach
Boys Smile-era pastiche of Marshall & Newell, avant-garde acid psych by
Popera Cosmic, Beatlesque pop-psych by Jigsaw and Uruguayan duo Iodi,
devastating toytown pop-sike by Mathusalem and Kenny Everett, dreamy
folk-pop by Justice, Peacock and Timon, insane bubblegum-fuzz by The
Others...and more. Remastered sound, nice full colour 12 pages booklet
featuring detailed liner notes about each band and pictures."
Vlor - Six-winged CD (Silber) [sil075] $12.25
RELEASE DATE: 10-26-2009
"...a purely artistic endeavor in which the musicians communicate with
one
another. This communication translates into the substance of the music.
Confusing, soothing, abstract... an interesting trip into the minds of
those involved in the real undercurrents of modern audio art." ~ Babysue
Vlor started as a short-lived moody pop band in 1992 & was revived as an acoustic shoegazing duo in 1997 releasing the EPs Lavished & Luxate before falling apart again in 1998. In 2006 the posthumous Sacred Places in the City was released & Vlor was relaunched as a group of musicians collaborating through the mail to record A Fire is Meant for Burning. The new album, Six-Winged, is Vlor's second album as a collection of Silber all-stars working together.
Six-Winged started with Brian John Mitchell (Remora/Small Life Form) recording guitars & bass lines & sending them out to friends to augment & complete. Returning with Mitchell (bass, guitar, vocals) to Vlor are Jon DeRosa of Aarktica (guitar), Jessica Bailiff (guitar, percussion, keyboard), & Paolo Messere of 6PM (guitar, bass, percussion, keyboard) to be joined by new members Annelies Monseré (guitar, cello, vocals, melodica, piano), Martin Newman of Plumerai & Goddakk (guitar), Mae Starr of Rollerball & Moodring (vocals), Jim DeJong of Infant Cycle (strings), Michael Walton of mwvm (guitar), Brian McKenzie of Electric Bird Noise & Something About Vampires And Sluts (guitar, bass, percussion), Michael Wood of Something About Vampires And Sluts & The Wet Teens (vocals), & Magen McAvenney (vocals). Yeah, we know, it's a ton of folks.
Through sixteen tracks Vlor goes through several musical styles,
from slowcore ("i have left home," "she goes out with boys") to garage rock
("watch me bleed") to drone rock ("damage the land & the sea") to moody pop
("not the one for me") to aggressive ambient ("tolerate the wicked," "maybe
you should chew on my fist") to cinematic soundscapes ("guided," "statue of
jealousy"). Despite being recorded in six states & five countries, delving
into a half dozen genres, & having twelve creative voices; Six-Winged
maintains its focus as a cohesive album always maintaining the dichotomy of
sound that is so distinctively Vlor -- brooding, searching, angst-ridden,
& celebratory.
Wax
Poetics - #37 October/November 2009 Magazine (Wax Poetics) [WP037]
$9.25
"On the front and back cover: Michael Jackson. Contents: Editor's
Letter,
Re:Discovery, In Memoriam, The Mackrosoft, Phenomenal Handclap Band, Mayer
Hawthorne, Illa J, Shawn Lee, Lee Fields, The Emperor Machine, Record
Rundown, Goin' Back To Indiana, The Corporation, MJ Going For Self, John
Landis & Thriller, Wah Wah Watson, Bertram Brown, Nicky Siano, Analog Out."
113 pages, full color, high gloss, incredibly well done & essential. 37th
issue of this U.S.-based production.
[ D V D ]
Andrew Liles - Ouarda (The Subtle Art Of Phyllorhodomancy)
DVD+CD (Dirter Promotions) [DPROM068CD] $18.25
Previously released in a limited edition 2LP version, now available for
the
first time on a digital format -- the DualDisc expanded edition of the
critically-acclaimed Ouarda (The Subtle Art Of Phyllorhodomancy) by Andrew
Liles (Current 93, Nurse With Wound). Ouarda features contributions from,
amongst others, Danielle Dax, Rose McDowall and Edward Ka-Spel. Side one of
this disc is an audio CD including an extra track and a slightly remixed
version of the LP. Side two of the disc is a DVD which includes a film by
Michael Tang with musical adaptations by Colin Potter; Old Tom's Marrow, a
film by Andrew Liles and 3 amazing 5.1 mixes by Freida Abtan. Packaged in a
beautiful super jewel-box with a full-color 8-page booklet with stunning
Liles artwork. DVD is NTSC all-region.
[ H I S T O R I C A L ]
Bob
Patterson - Instrumentalist, Singer, Songwriter CD (Riverman Music)
[BTR041CD] $16.00
Presenting the first-ever CD reissue of this 1971 mellow-folk rarity,
now
remastered in a 24-bit remaster. Extremely rare private folk record
assembled by the former leader of Elizabeth (the noted Vanguard label psych
band) and friends in a Philadelphia studio. Most tracks have multiple
layered guitars, and 8 of the 12 songs have vocals. Listen to the doomy
"Darlin' Good Girl," which sounds like the Richard Farina classic "The Bold
Marauder" to some ears. If you collect private folk LPs from this era,
you'll be hard-pressed to top this one for quality and obscurity. A
near-perfect, sun-dappled recording, but there's a darkness amidst the
calmness as well. An album as rare as Perry Leopold's Experiment In
Metaphysics. Housed in a paper gatefold sleeve, including liner notes and
rare photos.
Clearing - Clearing CD (Riverman Music) [BTR039CD] $16.00
This is the first-ever CD reissue of the second, better-known 1973
album
from this pastoral Boston-area folk trio, now remastered in a 24-bit
remaster. Intimate, low-key hippie folk with several things going for it.
Warm male and female vocals create an appealing blend supported by acoustic
guitar, piano, tablas and flute. Far from being trad, a playful and
occasionally improvised feel dominates with nocturnal Eastern flourishes
for that special late-night acid feel. When Clearing stick to the femme-vox
hippie picnic sounds, the sound is quite appealing. Comes in a handsome
paper sleeve that precisely reproduces the original LP sleeve in miniature
form. Includes detailed liner notes written by one of the original band
members.
Dieter Bihlmaier Selection - The SWF-Session CD (Long Hair)
[LHC079CD] $22.75
"From the vaults of radio station SWF (today SWR) and previously
unreleased, this fantastic group with a rather unusual instrumentation
(flutes, bass, drums) blow your ears away. They played music you probably
haven't heard before. Call it free rock, living new jazz or just extremely
good music, this trio is far out of any limitations. The music of the
Dieter Bihlmaier Selection possesses genuine power, where explosive
eruptions alternate with lyric moments. On repeated listening the music
develops an irresistible pull that we wish to share with all lovers of
'good music.' These recordings are without any doubt not only of high
musical value, they are also an absolute rarity, since unlike the two
albums of the Dieter Bihlmaier Selection, they were recorded just in the
trio formation flute, bass and drums and without the participation of the
vibraphone player. The SWF-Recordings 1973 of Dieter Bihlmaier Selection
are an outstanding musical achievement. CD comes with full coloured 12
pages booklet including band history and a lot of photos. Digitally
remastered from the original master tape. If you want to listen to more...
listen to Dieter Bihlmaier Selection The SWF-Recordings 1973."
Eliane Radigue - Triologie de la Mort 3CD (XI) [XI119CD]
$24.25
Classic 1998 release, restocked. "Trilogie de la Mort is a work in
three
parts. The first, Kyema, was originally released by XI in 1992. The 2nd and
3rd parts, Kailasha and Koumé are being released for the first time and the
trilogy now makes its debut as a whole [this 3CD set is being sold for the
cost of 2 CDs to make up for the prior availability Kyema]. 'Kyema' is
inspired by the texts of Bardo-Thodol (The Tibetan Book of the Dead). This
work evokes the six intermediate states which constitute the 'existential
continuity' of the being. 'Radigue's 'Kyema' explores electronically the
full range of existence, going beyond death and back into the exuberance of
physical life, expanding the musical consciousness of the uninitiated,
leading one in a cyclical voyage through a myriad of tones, drones, and
warbles where the end is only the beginning.' -- Neil Strauss. 'Kailasha',
the second chapter in the work, is structured on an imaginary pilgrimage
around Mt. Kailash, one of the most sacred mountains in the Himalayas;
considered as a path to other spheres of existence. 'Koumé' makes up the
last part of the trilogy and emphasizes the transcendence of death. It is
the descent to the deepest, where the spark of life is. There, Death is
born. Death becomes birth. Activity re-beginning. Eternity, a perpetual
'becoming'."
Haters, The - In The Shade Of Fire CD (Hanson Records)
[HN206CD] $12.00
"Hanson Records is proud to present the first LP from The Haters, In
The
Shade Of Fire, reissued for the first time on the CD format and for the
first time in its original entirety. Originally released on LP by Silent
Records in 1986, this digipak CD edition has been remastered by Warn
Defever from the original master reels, and includes the full complete
album as two of the tracks had to be shortened to fit on the original LP
issue. 'Back during my Bachelor of Fine Arts, one of my fellow students was
a woman who was eventually obsessed with the idea, systems, and eventual
remnants of 'process'. One of her key pieces involved hundreds of raw eggs
which she carefully emptied, cracked open, and systematically peeled the
delicate membranes from inside of the eggs. She carefully laid out the
hundreds of membranes as they assembled in a giant area to the side of the
studio. I swear that she didn't even have some grandiose idea for the
membranes as the peeling and assemblage system(s) evolved into something
that was simply beyond any eventuality and initial idea for the piling
skins of the eviscerated eggs. The deconstruction and conception behind the
act of pulling apart the eggs into a vast collection of grimy, translucent
membrane piles suggested something so much more than even a final
constructed piece. Watching her as she realized that the true crux behind
the piece was the process alone was astounding as the membranes were laid
to rest to represent an almost sudden and powerful eventuality that acted
as a piled testament to 'process'. The harsh sound works of The Haters over
artist GX Jupitter-Larsen's long and established career also powerfully
bring to mind the idea of process. Most of The Haters' works are ideologies
behind something being destroyed or manipulated; the amplified and
sometimes distorted sounds of the processes representing a document that
exemplifies the acts carried out upon the objects, machines, or otherwise.
The act of recording the processes alone is evidence of an eventuality (to
possibly be edited further) in the form of a possible final piece of vinyl,
cassette, or CD, but the tendencies of The Haters' material also intend the
listener to experience the process of the audio lines as they were
primarily constructed in the recording area. There is no doubt that GX
appreciates the totemic quality of his personal objects' physical
aftermath, that is sometimes documented with video or photographs, but the
powerful beauty of a The Haters audio piece is the experience for the
listener that acts ALSO as a final document of sound that represent clearly
the certain idea and sometimes violent act. The Haters' celebrated early
work In the Shade of Fire acts a document collection for the listener that
also reflects The Haters strong textural aesthetic through object
manipulation and recording that defines GX's place in the world of 'harsh
noise'. Listening your way through the material is a studied and defined
testament to different representational fragments of heavy sound and source
manipulation. The tracks 'Glsam' and 'Diti' are explosive introductory and
side concluding / framing pieces that highlight and pronounce the breaking
and crashing down of material, all gelled with bass driven strikes whose
trails deteriorate into hints of cascading dirty and dark 'Americanoise'
distortion. 'Bebas' powers through a heavier dynamic with conscious falling
apart of source material, but in abstracted waves that suggest the material
being rebuilt just to simply fall and crash apart again with a sense of
powerful futility. 'Thuch' enhances the textural elements of the explosions
and crashing as the sharpness of the strikes are slightly 'rounded' at the
edges to expose an almost 'gurgling' texture that moves and slaps with
vicious perplexity. Taisic represents a very early 'Americanoise' study of
hiss manipulation that is accented with minimalist scraping that bring to
mind the force of process on top of the white noise line. 'Cassas' is the
album's meditated example of sharp shot-driven violence; articulated and
seemingly layered for optimum cutting and breaking which bring forth sound
dynamism from very physical deterioration. 'Fire 5' is an amazing example
of a highly textural 'wall' of sound that, to the contemporary fan of
gritty and dirty crunch waves, is a primary early example of powerful
crackle lines that focus on the inner dynamism of the sound itself. All of
the material discussed above is made up of elements of physicality and
process, but the tracks 'Iny 1' and 'Iny 2' act, for the listener, as the
'notes' for the ideology of process and falling apart as they act as a more
minimal, subtle, and exacting study of the scraping, scuffing, and hands on
work of the artist as he manipulates the deteriorating materials. In
essence, 'Iny 2' is an amazing concluding track that reminds the listener
of the core focus and ideology behind The Haters' exemplification of
grating sound via concept driven manipulation of tangible sources, the
process, the aftermath, and the eventual recording that reflects all of the
above sound qualities.' -- Sam McKinlay
Jay
Bolotin - Jay Bolotin CD (Locust) [LOCUST119CD] $13.50
"Described by Kris Kristofferson as 'one of the three best songwriters
in
the country,' Kentucky native Jay Bolotin's songs have been championed by
the likes of Merle Haggard and Porter Wagoner, among many others. Yet Jay's
eponymous debut -- released on the major subsidiary Commonwealth United
label -- had the halflife of a mayfly when it went into circulation in 1970
and today it remains as phantasmic as the prairie ghosts that have long
populated his native Kentucky. However hasty or uncertain the release of
the album may have been some 40 years ago, one thing is certain: in a
darkened room in New York City at the end of a Kentucky childhood, a 20
year old Jay Bolotin cut a singularly enchanted album of unhurried, low key
loner ballads with the confidence and honesty of a seasoned journeyman. Jay
Bolotin is an unqualified singer songwriter gem that will appeal to fans of
Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt & Alex Chilton. Features Kenny Lyon on Bass
& Mark Taber on Piano & Harpsichord - both veterans of the Providence,
Rhode Island scene, The Fugs' Bobby Mason on percussion and David Mowry on
guitar. CD packaged in a trifold digipak with previously unpublished
photos. Remastered & reissued for the first time since its elusive
'release'."
Jesus Lizard - Down CD (Touch And Go) [TG431] $13.75
REISSUED AND REMASTERED BY STEVE ALBINI and BOB WESTON!!! The CD is
packaged in a deluxe Digipak with a 14"x20" double-sided color folder
including never before seen photos, and extensive liner notes by the band
and by journalists who were there when it was all happening. CD also
includes four bonus tracks-"Panic In Cicero" from the Clerks soundtrack,
"White Hole" from the (Fly) On (The Wall) 7-inch, "Glamorous" and "Deaf As
A Bat" from Lash. No Export to UK/Europe/Australia
Jesus Lizard - Goat CD (Touch And Go) [TG468] $13.75
*REISSUED AND REMASTERED BY STEVE ALBINI and BOB WESTON!!! The CD is
packaged in a deluxe Digipak with a 14"x20" double-sided color folder
including never before seen photos, and extensive liner notes by the band
and by journalists who were there when it was all happening. CD also
includes five bonus tracks-"Sunday You Need Love" from the Mouthbreather
single, "Pop Song" from the Amphetamine Reptile Dope-Guns-N-F***ing In The
Streets Vol 7 single, a live version of "Seasick" from the 1992 London gig
give away single, plus live versions of "Lady Shoes" and "Monkey Trick"
from the Lash EP. No Export to UK/Europe/Australia
Jesus Lizard - Head CD (Touch And Go) [TG454] $13.75
REISSUED AND REMASTERED BY STEVE ALBINI and BOB WESTON!!! The CD is
packaged in a deluxe Digipak with a 14"x20" double-sided color folder
including never before seen photos, and extensive liner notes by the band
and by journalists who were there when it was all happening. CD also
includes the Pure EP plus three bonus tracks-ive versions of "Killer
McHann" and "Bloody Mary" from the Lash EP, and, the song "Chrome" from the
Chrome 7-inch. No Export to UK/Europe/Australia
Jesus Lizard - Liar CD (Touch And Go) [TG400] $13.75
REISSUED AND REMASTERED BY STEVE ALBINI and BOB WESTON!!! The CD is
packaged in a deluxe Digipak with a 14"x20" double-sided color folder
including never before seen photos, and extensive liner notes by the band
and by journalists who were there when it was all happening. The CD also
includes four bonus tracks- Idful Studios demo versions of "Gladiator" and
"Boilermaker" (previously only available on the Australian only 7-inch on
Insipid Records), plus the single version of "Dancing Naked Ladies," and
"Wheelchair Epidemic" from the same single. No Export to
UK/Europe/Australia
Lemon Drops, The - Sunshower Flower Power 2CD (Cicadelic
Records) [CIC9842CD] $23.25
"The Lemon Drops were pioneers of a psychedelic flower-power sound in
and
around the Chicago suburbs in 1967. The mastermind behind their music was
Rembrandt Records' owner, Reggie Weiss. The first song he wrote for The
Lemon Drops was inspired by the effects of a LSD trip and titled 'I Live In
The Springtime.' Long recognized as a classic example of psychedelic
folk-rock, 'I Live In The Springtime,' has appeared on the Rhino Nuggets
box set, Pebbles Volume Eight, Chicago Garage Band Greats, and many other
compilations. In addition to the shimmering splendor of 'I Live In The
Springtime,' The Lemon Drops left behind a great legacy of music during
their brief two-year tenure. Included on this two CD set are many
previously unreleased recordings (including two different versions of 'I
Live In The Springtime') and a twelve page booklet with extensive liner
notes and band memorabilia."
Master's Apprentices, The - The Master's Apprentices 2CD (Aztec
Music) [AVS047CD] $24.50
"Originally released in June 1967, The Master's Apprentices is one of
the
great Aussie albums of the 1960s. Their legendary debut has been
re-mastered from the original source for the very first time...and it's a
2CD set with a massive 27 bonus tracks! Deluxe 8 panel digi-pak
presentation with a 28 page booklet with many previously unpublished photos
and recent interviews with singer Jim Keays and guitarist / songwriter Mick
Bower. Features the singles: 'Undecided' / 'Wars Or Hands Of Time' (best
b-side ever?), 'Buried And Dead,' 'But One Day,' 'Elevator Driver,' 'Living
In A Child's Dream' and 'Brigitte.' PLUS the full Max Pepper demo
recordings AND 16 wild garage rehearsal tracks from 1966."
Moondog - Elpmas CD (Kopf) [KD123314CD] $16.00
Originally released in 1991, Moondog's Elpmas is a landmark late-period
work by the legendary composer. After a prolonged period of silence while
living in Germany, Louis Thomas Hardin (aka Moondog) returned to America in
1989 to partake in a highly-praised performance at the 10th New Music
America Festival, sharing the program with John Zorn and Butch Morris.
Although returning to his home in Oer-Erkenschwick, Germany shortly after
the performance, the sudden attention and renewal of interest in his work
prompted Moondog, then in his late-70s, to record new material. Elpmas is
the stunning result of a revitalized legend still at the peak of his
vitality and innovation. On Elpmas, Moondog uses a sampler for the very
first time, complementing his compositions with field recordings, and
explaining, "The sampler is ideal for my kind of music, which is mostly
contrapuntal, specifically canonic." The percolating marimba patterns on
opening track "Wind River Powow" recalls the type of pure, luscious
tone-studies that once deemed Moondog "the founder of minimalism" by Philip
Glass and Steve Reich, but Elpmas is a varied, thematic work, epic in scope
and dedicated to the aboriginal peoples of the world. "Westward Ho!" is an
8-part canon depicting the western migration from Europe to the New World,
and features guest musicians Götz Alsmann and Andi Toma (Mouse On Mars).
"Suite Equestria" is the most energizing piece on the album, its intricate
marimba pattern carried to epic heights by the incursion of a valiant male
chorus. Elpmas also introduces Moondog's "Overtone Continuum," an ambitious
compositional system in which a 4-part male chorus is overdubbed 12 times,
resulting in the disorienting 144-voice experiment "The Message." The album
ends with "Cosmic Meditation," a 24-minute expanse of hazy warmth and
melancholic, Eno-esque ambience intended to suggest the rising and falling
waves of the Siderial Sea. As Moondog concludes in the liner notes, "Its
unworldly sound brings one close to the essence of things, to the 'peace
that passeth all understanding.'"
Moondog - A New Sound Of An Old Instrument CD (Kopf)
[KD133017CD] $16.00
Originally released in 1979 by Kopf and reissued in 1999. By the time A
New
Sound Of An Old Instrument was released, Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin) had
made his home in Germany for 5 years, and decided to compose this suite of
pieces in honor of "The King Of Instruments," the pipe organ. "The organ
has not been called the 'King of Instruments' for nothing, because of all
instruments, it has the widest range of possibilities, lending itself to
any mood or style. In suffering the organ to emit secular and even profane
music, namely dance music, I do not find it out of place, since I am fully
aware of the organ's pagan beginnings, the pipes of Pan." Playing upon this
notion, Moondog matches several of these organ pieces with shakers and
other forms of knocking percussion which lends an organic feel to what is
traditionally thought of as a formal, unbendable instrument. On the
contrary, Moondog emphasizes the percussive and contrapuntal/staccato tones
the organ is capable of producing, rather than drones, although those are
also used here to provide a background for what does feel like decidedly
vernal, lilting, woodland pipes. He also explains in the liner notes his
"logrundrs," a canonical method of counterpoint. A New Sound Of An Old
Instrument is a true Moondog oddity, but his mastery of illustrating the
neverending nature of patterns in melodic tone and sequence are especially
prominent here, focused as it is on one instrument. Organs played by Fritz
Storfinger and Wolfgang Schwering. Package includes liner notes written by
Louis T. Hardin himself.
Moondog - In Europe CD (Kopf) [KD330140CD] $16.00
Originally released by Kopf in 1977, and reissued in 1999, Moondog In
Europe was visionary composer Louis Thomas Hardin's (aka Moondog) first
release after moving to Germany. Perhaps reflecting the historicity of his
new environment, this album is more structured and formal than most of his
previous releases; however, his layered song-cycles are just as circular
and experimental, and still backed by a fair amount of tribal percussion.
There are moments of whimsy, as on "In Vienna," with its bouncing,
music-box like celesta, or on "Viking I," also reflected with a snappy
celesta melody, but there are also moments of parlor-room somberness, as on
the string arrangements for "Romance In G" or the last 20+ minutes of the
album, which is comprised exclusively of extremely heavy pipe-organ suites.
Moondog In Europe, though less playful than other of his albums, displays
Moondog's virtuosity as a classical composer, with elegantly stylized
pieces that see Moondog embracing a grandiosity he hadn't approached
previously.
Moondog - H'Art Songs CD (Kopf) [KD330160CD] $16.00
This is Kopf Records' 1999 CD reissue of Moondog's H'art Songs,
originally
released in Germany in 1978. In 1974, New York City's famous "Viking Of
Sixth Avenue" travelled to Europe to produce a concert of his works with
the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra. Afterwards, Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin,
1916-1999), who once told an interviewer that he considered himself a
"European in exile," felt compelled to stay on the continent in order to
realize the imagined European identity he invoked with his clothing and
music. Moondog felt culturally and artistically closer to Europe and it was
here where he spent the rest of his life, developing some of the most
unique and surprising, if not lesser known developments in his vast body of
work. H'art Songs is one anomaly in the composer's output during this
period, as each of the songs are considerably traditional in form with a
sing-song, almost pop-oriented mentality. All the songs consist of Moondog
singing to minimal, catchy piano accompaniments and occasional percussion.
Moondog sings with a quavering sincerity in his voice that recalls Robert
Wyatt while the pathos and humor in the lyrics to songs like "Enough About
Human Rights" ("What about hog rights?/What about frog rights?") and "I'm
Just A Hop Head" ("...and so I'll be, till I'm dead/I started hopping when
first I hopped into bed") suggests the innocent despair of Daniel Johnston.
The simplicity in these songs, however, is misleading, as the repetitive
melodies are blessed with subtle chord structures that gradually take on an
epic, even otherworldly, feel. This singular quirkiness and radiant
uniqueness in approach makes this music distinctly Moondog. Highly
accessible yet criminally overlooked, H'Art Songs' music reveals a
fascinating stage in Moondog's artistic development, blessed with the
understated beauty that makes his work so timeless.
Moondog & The London Saxophonic - Sax Pax For A Sax CD (Kopf)
[KD943333CD] $16.00
Originally released in 1999, this is a collection of Louis Hardin's
(aka
Moondog) works arranged and performed by The London Saxophonic, originally
intended as a commemoration of Antoine Joseph Sax. "The composer calls his
saxophone project 'Sax Pax,' underlining that in this case the saxophones
are not to be linked with military bands for which the instruments
originally had been intended, but are used exclusively for peaceful
purposes. 'Pax' like peace or packs, meaning different sized groups within
the ensemble, the first 'pack' involves 4 saxes, as in 'Single Foot,' the
second one using 5 saxes, as in 'Sandalwood,' then seven saxes, as in 'New
Amsterdam,' nine saxes in 'Novette No. 1,' and so on." --from the liner
notes. The layering of saxes as such can alternately sound like chamber
music, and also very much like raucous street jazz. Most pieces are written
in canon form, having up to 36 voices. The ensemble also features
luminaries of British saxophone music and other key artists including Peter
Hammill, Danny Thompson (Pentangle), Andrew Davis, and Stuart Gordon.
Includes a 16-page booklet featuring extensive liner notes on the music,
lyrics, and photos.
Presence - Presence CD (Riverman Music) [BTR034CD] $16.00
This is the first-ever CD reissue of this 1976 UK psychedelic Christian
folk record, now remastered in a 24-bit remaster. With beautiful
male/female vocals, acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin, harmonica,
finger cymbals, organ, and tambourine, this is a truly special and lovely
album that leaves a lasting impression. If you have ears to hear you will
know of some of the musical influences behind the album: The Incredible
String Band, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Joni Mitchell,
etc. Some downer-folk moments interspersed with messages of transformative
hope and peace, ably soundtracked by gentle God-speak crooning and nimble
fingerpicking. Includes four bonus tracks from some of their later
recordings, and an insert with liner notes written by band leader Paul
Gateshill.
Scene Is Now, The - Burn All Your Records CD (Lexicon Devil)
[LEXDEV024CD] $12.25
Lexicon Devil presents part three of three in their reissue series
documenting the great works of New York's '80s avant-garde group, The Scene
Is Now. TSIN were formed at the dawn of the 1980s by Philip Dray and Chris
Nelson, a band born from the ashes of no wave trio, Information (the third
partner of that outfit being Rick Brown). Influenced equally by the ragged
avant-folk sounds of the Holy Modal Rounders and The Fugs, the screech of
DNA and Mars, and the traditional Americana of Bob Wills and Hoagy
Carmichael, TSIN instantly set themselves apart from the pack. Their music
was an indefinable mixture of the old and new, the impenetrable and the
accessible and the weird and wonderful. Some folks compared 'em to the Red
Krayola or Pere Ubu, some to SST outfits such as the Meat Puppets and
Slovenly, and some people even hail them as the world's finest no wave jug
band. The point is this: between the years 1984 and 1988, they released
three magnificent albums on their own label, Lost (the last two being in
co-operation with the Twin/Tone label), which have been out-of-print for a
dog's age and had never seen the light of day on compact disc. Until now.
This is their extremely rare 1985 debut, Burn All Your Records. Recorded in
1984, BAYR was laid to tape when the band was still musically pretty raw
and yet to blossom into the melodic powerhouse they became over their
subsequent two LPs. >From an almost amelodic chaos through to a streamlined
pop band in three shakes. On BAYR, The Scene Is Now were tearing out a
ramshackle brand of Dada-infused post-no wave folk-rock which was part DNA,
part Fall, part Fugs and equal doses of Pere Ubu and the Red Krayola. BAYR
is 20 tracks of primo slop-pop in just under 40 minutes. It's the sound of
four NYC gentlemen kicking against the pricks in Reagan-era America. It's
some of the best hardly-discovered underground rock 'n' roll made in the
1980s, and it's finally available again, remastered from the original tapes
and featuring a full-color, 16-page booklet with liner notes by Wire/Uncut
scribe Jon Dale and Dave Lang and a wealth of exclusive photos from the
period. And, yes, it does feature "Yellow Sarong," as later covered by Yo
La Tengo.
Various Artists - Spiritual Jazz CD (Now Again) [NA5042CD]
$13.50
Subtitled: Esoteric, Modal + Deep Jazz From The Underground 1968-77.
"Now-Again Records, in conjunction with Jazzman Records, presents an
expanded version of the compilation that introduced many listeners to the
sound of the unsung musicians who, in the midst of the Vietnam War and the
fallout of the Civil Rights struggle, created some of the most beautiful,
spiritual and meditative music of the era. The music was at times funky, at
times contemplative, but it always strived to say something about the world
in which the musicians lived. Existing completely under the critical radar
and largely ignored or unknown by music fans and critics alike, most of the
musicians featured in this album won't be familiar to even the most
seasoned aficionado. Their records, frequently turned down by distributors
and record stores, saw little attention when first released -- and have
seen even less since. But in this era of musical apathy, where so many
music junkies look to the past for their musical fix, we have re-discovered
hidden, obscure and esoteric jazz musicians who looked to the four corners
of the earth, and beyond, for inspiration. With this anthology we evaluate
'Spiritual Jazz,' jazz created in the era after John Coltrane, a time which
saw the evolution of an underground jazz that spoke about the reform of the
soul, the reform of the spirit, and the reform of society: a music which
was local and international at once, which was a personal journey and a
political statement, and which was religious and secular in one
non-contradictory breath. The music on this album reflects the social and
historical forces at work during the closedown of the 60s dream; music made
by close-knit collectives and individual visionaries, by prisoners and
eccentrics, by mystics and political radicals. It includes music by
acknowledged masters, and moments of brilliance by unsung figures known to
us from just one or two recordings. There are songs from prison bands,
Egyptian big bands, high school jazz ensembles, African musicians gigging
with free jazz legends, and African American jazz heroes. Spiritual Jazz:
Esoteric, Modal And Deep Jazz From The Undergound, 1968-77 is the jazz
music of America in the age of civil rights, brutal repression, political
assassination and war; a music that would guarantee the survival of the
spiritual dimension in a society that was angry and traumatized, but
nevertheless had seen hope of better days to come."
Various Artists - Africa Boogaloo: The Latinization Of West
Africa CD (Honest Jon's) [HJR041CD] $16.00
Honest Jon's presents a collection of music from '60s and '70s West
Africa
that is heavily influenced by Latin sounds from the era, representing a
mutual cultural exchange that would have a permanent impact on the
evolution of each region's trademark sound. Much of what makes modern Latin
music so irresistible came from Africa in the first place. When the first
waves of African rhythms, reconstituted in the Caribbean, returned home on
radios and records, Africans -- especially in West and Central Africa --
received them with great enthusiasm. Staid dance bands that replicated
European music soon began to swing as Caribbean accents settled in their
rhythm sections. By the 1950s, Africa had produced its own Calypsonians,
and more than one African musician changed his name to give it a Latin
flavor. Some even composed songs in Spanish, while others wrote nonsense
lyrics that only sounded like the real thing. No band mixed local and Latin
styles more successfully than Orchestre Baobab and its leader Balla Sidibe.
The mesmerizing "On Verra Ca" finds Baobab leaning in the direction of the
stuttering mbalax sound that Youssou N'Dour carried to great popularity.
Other Senegalese bands followed the trend, like the Rio Band, Orchestre
N'Guewel, and Laba Sosseh from Gambia (like his compatriot Amara Toure) who
styled himself as a salsa singer after his hero Johnny Pacheco. From Benin,
Gnonnas Pedro sang in every pop style imaginable, but he seems especially
at home in an Afro-Cuban embrace, as you will hear on the 1977 recording
"Adigbedoto." The closing track also comes from Benin, a 1976 recording by
the celebrated Orchestre Poly Rythmo -- though the singer, Pierre Tchana,
hails from Cameroun. "Quiero Wapacha" features another Camerounian singer,
Charles Lembe, and also from Cameroun is legendary African Jazz
saxophonist, Manu Dibango, who is featured here alongside Le Grand Calle
and Cuban flutist Don Gonzalo. Orchestre OK Jazz recorded any number of
Afro-Cuban inspired sides: "Micorrason" is one of the band's earliest
songs, recorded soon after their formation in 1956. There is no better
evidence of the push-me-pull-you, back-and-forthing between two cultures
than the Afro-Latin compilation we have here. All the flow from an
unparalleled period of exuberance and creativity after World War II had
ended and before homegrown tyranny had yet to descend on the land. It was
Africa's moment, optimistic and free. You can hear it in the music.
--Adapted from text by Gary Stewart, author of Rumba On The River: A
History of the Popular Music of the Two Congos.
Wilson Mckinley - Now I'm A Jesus Freak! 2CD (Tanignak
Productions) [WM7079-2CD] $19.75
"Two full discs of legendary Jesus Rock, all sourced from the original
mastertapes! The first CD contains the complete tracks of Spirit of Elijah
and Heaven's Gonna Be a Blast (Wilson McKinley's two most famous and
oft-pirated albums) in a completely new digital remix, rounded out with
three other album tracks making their CD debut. For others that might be
enough, but there's also an entire second CD of unreleased material that
contains some of their best writing and ranges from straight- ahead rock to
country-rock to harmony- rich ballads, recorded between 1970 to 1976 and
only hinted about before, including several live tracks where the vocals
had to be remixed to be audible, but the musicianship is outstanding. In
addition, founding members Randy Wilcox and Mike Messer have provided
several unreleased tracks each for the second disc. Booklet includes
recording credits and unreleased band photos from the era."
This week's VINYL update contains releases by:
[ F E A T U R E
D R E L E A S E S ]
Track List: "Impediments out of
Oakland,
California, play gloriously in-complex scuzz-punk -- With its blasted out
bass riffs, Animals-style drums and guitars as shredded as Iggy's bloody
chest, their vintage sounding debut is a welcome change from the calculated
cool." -- AM New York "The Impediments, still in their teens, are
pretty straight-up from the Dolls/Dead Boys school of snotty rave-ups, the
youthful energy brings a sense of the new to it all" -- Brooklyn Vegan
Aera * Arnaud Le Texier & Delete * Barbarix * Barn Owl *
Brian Jonestown Massacre, The * Brightblack Morning Light/Lungfish *
Broadcast & The Focus Group * Broke Revue (Dan Melchior) * Carlos
Giffoni & Hive Mind * Cedric "Im" Brooks & The Light Of Saba * Chris
Brokaw * Demdike Stare * Dog Day * Einstellung * Ephma *
F.S. Blumm & David Grubbs * Factums * Fall * Gatekeeper *
Glorytellers * Harvey Milk * Hizatron/Geiom * Hot Toddy *
Hunee * Impediments * Javelin * Jay Bolotin * John Duncan *
Johnny D * Joshua Emery Blatchley * Kirk Degiorgio *
L'acephale * Makoto Kawabata * Mark Mcguire * Mats Gustafsson
* Matt U * Mittens on Strings * MLZ * Moon Duo * Mordant
Music * Mr. California & The State Police * Muslimgauze *
Noveller/aidan Baker * Oren Ambarchi + Lasse Marhaug * Quarteto
1111 * Radian * Rossi B & Luca * Sabu Toyozumi/Mototeru Takagi *
Scuba * Shearing Pinx * Skatebard/dreesvn * SP:MC *
Spencer Parker * Starless & Bible Black * Takis * Tom Fazzini
* Twin Stumps * Vito Acconci/New Humans * Will Guthrie *
William Nowik
John Duncan - The Nazca Transmissions LP (Planam) [PLANAMZCA]
$25.25
"On Christmas Eve, 2004, John Duncan received a mysterious email from
an
archaeologist working at the site of the Nazca Lines in Peru. He claimed to
have discovered, and over time recorded, a variety of sounds actually
generated by the enigmatic lines themselves. Familiar with Duncan's
'Infrasound-Tidal,' composed from source recordings taken from tides,
seismic activity and barometric data from the Australian coastline, he
suggested to Duncan the composition of a piece with these sources. All of
the sources were modified in the studio of John Duncan, some radically, to
bring out an unsettling, haunting quality. In mid-June 2005, the glorious
5-track piece was finally ready. John Duncan sent several messages to the
archaeologist, none of them ever answered or returned. A hard disk crash
effectively destroyed all of the email correspondence between them. What
remains are the notes he sent that ostensibly describe the details of sites
and times for the source recordings. Those notes have been reproduced on
the insert included in this edition, also presenting John Duncan liner
notes. First pressing limited to 380 copies, with embossed total-black
cover, insert and full-color inner sleeve with wonderful space images of
the Nazca Lines."
Muslimgauze - Madrass Sitar Burner (unreleased material) 2xLP
(Staalplaat) [ARCHIVE10LP] $30.00
"Madrass Sitar Burner harbours Muslim-world East-Indian/Pakistani
flavours
as well as North African/Middle Eastern into what could be described as
among the more 'jumping' Muslimgauze releases in the oeuvre. Curiously,
sitars surface on only one track, perhaps reduced to ashes before further
songs could be composed. Masters for Madrass... were submitted by Bryn
Jones to Staalplaat in 1998, while Muslimgauze music was well into the
dancehall-reggae-dub-cum-noisy-distortion phase. Those who wish to place
the album in the overall context of the discography can do so among the
'ethno-electro' (where traditional music is walked through a
hall-of-mirrors of effects, deft panning, then dubbed-out into staggered
bits) alongside Silknoose, Uzbekistani Bizzare And Souk, Lo-Fi India Abuse,
and Alms for Iraq. Madrass... opens with simmering tablas, the mridangam
and santoor for several tracks before the listener is transported to remote
dusty villages of North Africa to experience both spirited and serene reed
flutes that negotiate through high-voltage electronic rhythms. It is the
rhythms that are the most pronounced element of this release as molten,
toxic waste bass lines and tectonic strength beats both seep and clamour
either like a force of nature or post-apocalyptic fall-out. The non-Indo
tracks are familiar as parts were previously released on Dar Es Salaam
while one track is straight off the Nommos' Return 10". Jones was not
always patient when certain tracks were not released soon enough to his
liking and consequently were sent elsewhere without notice. The balance
remains dangerously sharp unreleased gems ideal for the dance floor
provided a sound system is robust enough to channel the sheer force of
Muslimgauze. Despite the near-overwhelming rhythms and bass-ethnic elements
along with voices from outskirts of Lahore and Bedouin caravan routes
persist like determined insurgents against 'Western occupier' styles. To
harness this raw power and beauty, Staalplaat recruited Germany's
surpassing audio engineer, Rashad Becker who specially mastered and spanned
these tracks over two pieces of virgin vinyl. Track listings on the inner
circles are inscribed in Bryn Jones own handwriting no less. Madrass Sitar
Burner is for Muslimgauze completists who want an artefact and new fans who
want to hear an artisan put grime and dubstep proponents to shame." Text by
Ibrahim Khider, author of "Muslimgauze: Chasing the Shadow of Bryn Jones"
Takis - Pendules Magnétiques/Le Siècle De Kafka LP (Alga
Marghen) [MARGHEN030LP] $29.00
"Alga Marghen proudly presents one of the highlights of his catalogue,
an
exclusive LP edition with the recordings of Takis electro-magnetic
sculptures. Takis is the originator of this new approach to the musicality
of sound, which consists in laying bare the repetitious structure of
musical form and its functional derivation, thus rejecting the symbolism of
representation. Takis was born in 1925 in Athens. Preferring, as a matter
of principle, to teach himself rather than study in an institution, he left
Greece in 1954 and lived as a citizen of the world, traveling through
Europe and the USA. Some of his earliest manifestations in the 1940s
consisted of explosions carried out in open places. His first 'Signals'
date from 1954: they were rods consisting of piano wires which created
musical vibrations as they stuck against each other in the wind. In fact
they constituted the first appearance in his work and in contemporary art
history of a form of musical expression in which sounds are called forth in
an un-programmed way, owing to the action of natural forces. In 1961 Takis
meets Marcel Duchamp in New York. Duchamp's perpetual moving bicycle wheels
inspired Takis' hydromagnetic sculptures. In the period between 1964 and
1965 Takis conceives his 'Pendules magnètiques' and constructs his first
Sound Sculptures. After the exhibition of Takis titled 'Electro-musical
relief' at Indica Gallery in London in 1966, the New Scientist magazine in
an article entitled 'The sounds of tomorrow' commented that Takis, Iannis
Xenakis and John Cage are the most promising musicians of the century.
Takis' 'Pendules magnétiques' are based on the simple concept of using
magnetic waves caused by electricity as a means to activate repeated
musical sounds: the latter are to be heard every time a needle strikes a
string, when attracted by a magnet. The sounds reproduced in this edition
were recorded in 1993 by Samon Takahashi at Takis' retrospective at Jeu de
Paume in Paris. Takis participates in 1984 at the exhibition titled 'The
Century of Kafka' at Centre Pompidou in Paris and sound work with the same
title is also reproduced on this LP edition. As an artist he seeks a
natural origin for the construction of sound, and in particular that origin
which is furthest removed from the artist's arbitrary decision. For about
forty years now, it has been Takis's purpose to investigate language as a
natural function, conceiving function as a form of work. Furthermore, he
has broken down the frontiers between sculpture and music in a number of
pieces which can only be read by identifying their functionalism as
structured units, with their morphological, visual and acoustic aspects.
Edition limited to 380 copies with full-color sleeve, printed inner-sleeve
reproducing a testimony by Marcel Duchamp and insert with photos of the
'Pendules magnètiques' and a testimony by William Burroughs."
Tom
Fazzini - Neck To Neck LP (Locust) [LOCUST120LP] $16.50
"'The record was made with the backdrop of recovery - a new place to
live
and a chance at renewal -quite on the edge, lots of anger and the absurdity
of life all swirling around. Remember believing at the time that I would
probably have a short life, so that desperation fed into the album. First
and last chance to maybe say something on record. It took several months to
record and each session was a short burst. Towards the end of the recording
a welcome sense of levity crept in, spurred on by the ludicrous Casio
pre-sets. That felt good, given the whole Industrial scene, in the broad
sense, was a bit earnest and po-faced. The album title came to me from
being familiar with a bar called 'the swan with two necks'. I imagined Lyn
and myself as two separate swans, damaged, their necks entwined and in my
mind that poetically offset the industrial harshness within the grooves.' -
Tom Fazzini. Neck To Neck is a head scratching slab of warped primitive
synth punk cut by a young Tom Fazzini in exile from a madness inducing
tenure as a London postal carrier at Paul Dillon's Complex studios.
Originally released in 1984 on Gordon A. Hope's short lived A-mission label
(which also counted releases by Asmus Tietchens & O Yuki Conjugate), Tom
Fazzini's combination of minimal synth and brutalist /absurdist industrial
songs had more in line with the broader discomforts of the early '80s
international tape network, Family Fodder, LAFMS, Flying Lizards and Ralph
records than the agit pop that dominated the Leeds music scene at the time.
Once an outsider, always an outsider. Features new liner notes by Tom
Fazzini & previously unpublished photos. Remastered and pressed up on 180
gram virgin vinyl. One time edition of 500."
Vito Acconci/New Humans - Disallow LP (Planam) [PLANAMS]
$25.25
"Disallow is an art-record presenting the recording of a collaborative
performance by poet-artist-architect Vito Acconci and New York group New
Humans. Taking place within the sculpture installation 'Disassociate' by
artist Mika Tajima at Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, the release also
includes the complete aural components that were present during the
exhibition and live performances. For the public performances and private
sessions within the exhibition, sculptures in the space were reconfigured
to create divided recording spaces drawn structurally from Jean Luc
Godard's Sympathy for the Devil, an experimental film documenting the
contentious making of the Rolling Stone's legendary song and its parallel
politics. During this improvised public performance with New Humans, Vito
Acconci read permutations of text from a set of seminal audio works from
the 1970s, recombining lines and phrases on the move against New Human's
acute and minimally deadpan sonic and rhythm progression. Vito Acconci has
been a vital presence in contemporary art since the late 1960s; his
confrontational and ultimately political works have evolved from writing
through conceptual art, bodyworks, performance, film, video, multimedia
installation and now architecture and design. New Humans is a New
York-based noise band and moniker for artist Mika Tajima's collaborative
music, art, and actions. NH's recent releases continue a working use of
piercing drones, sheer static, and low bass frequencies. Members are
currently Howie Chen, Mika Tajima, and Eric Tsai. The release also includes
two subtle sound pieces by New Humans that were the ongoing sound elements
in the 'Disassociate' installation in which the performances and recordings
occurred. The first, a popular song stripped leaving only the minimal
register of static noise, it now resembles the anonymous crackling prelude
of a vinyl record. The second, the humming drone produced by a guitar amp
in waiting becomes substance without performance. Edition limited to 300
copies with full-color sleeve."
[ . . . ]
Aera - Humanum Est LP (Long Hair) [LHC043LP] $28.25
"Great first album of near Nuremberg (Bavaria, Germany) based band
re-released on vinyl for the first time. After he left famous 'Ihre
Kinder,' guitarist Muck Groh looked for new musicians to play his idea of
German progressive rock. With sax- and flute player Klaus Kreuzeder he
found, after a lot of changing line-ups, a congenial partner to create a
sound not only in the tradition of Bavaria jazz-rock oriented bands like
Embryo, Out of Focus, Missus Beastly etc. but also with that certain
Krautrock feel, that led the music to an unique style, originating as a
highly inventive fusion band with strong percussion, driving rhythms and
lots of space for solos from guitar, sax and flute ('Crack in the cosmic
egg'). Humanum Est presented a most proficient instrumental band with a
strong identity with multi-tracked guitar-riffing and near ever-present
wind solos, a real classic of the genre. Long tracks like 'Papa Doing,'
'Demmerawang,' 'Hodibbel,' or 'Sechs-Achtel' give an idea what the
musicians were able to do. While their live-performances -- they toured
nearly all the time -- they often played hour long versions of their
classics to their enthusiastic affiliates (comparable to KRAAN). Remastered
from original tape, comes with insert (bandstory/photos). A must have.
Limited 500 copies."
Aera - Hand Und Fuss LP (Long Hair) [LHC044LP] $28.25
"Second album of this great German band for the first time re-released
on
vinyl. The line-up had a little bit changed. Drummer Wolfgang Teske was
replaced by Lucky Schmidt (of Wind fame) and due to the addition of violin
player Christoph Krieger the sound was a touch more varied but mostly in
the vein of Humanum Est. Again great melodies, driving rhythms and lots of
space for solos from guitar, sax and flute and in addition from violin.
Long tracks like their classics 'Mechelwind' and 'Elephen Elephants' show
the bands' impressive ability to create atmosphere, passion and force.
Absolutely great stuff. Remastered from the original tape, Comes with 4 p.
insert. A must have. Limited 500 copies."
Arnaud Le Texier & Delete - Kensal Caracas Street 12 inch
(Safari) [SAF039EP] $11.50
"Today Arnaud Le Texier returns, this time alongside one of the best
and
most consistent producers of the past couple of years, Sergio Munoz aka
Delete. 1990 saw the start of Le Texier's musical journey. A journey that
has taken him from early DJ sets and record shop management in Rennes, a
five year residency at Paris's 'Queen' Club, touring throughout Europe and
North America, the 2004 launch of 'Safari Electronique' Records, and, in
2006, a move to London, where he now resides. Arnaud is now a regular
spinner at some of the cities finest, underground nightspots. His
productions and remixes have found homes on some wonderful labels. Arnaud
has released and remixed for Children of Tomorrow, 20:20 Vision,Robotronic
and SCI+TEC Digital Audio. Venezuela's Delete has been a productive roll to
envy. It's scary to think that Sergio, the man behind pseudonym, has only
been producing just over 4 years. Why scary? Well, his effortless skill of
moving from deep house, through tech, and into techno is enviable. It has
already seen him release and remix on labels including Tic Tac Toe, Frankie
Records, Saved, Resopal Schallware, Be As One, Terminal M, SCI+TEC Digital
Audio and of course Safari Electronique. Since its inception, and due to
the quality and diversity of its output, Safari has won great recognition
and support throughout the international scene. This has enabled Arnaud to
attract and release material from artists including D'Julz, Italoboyz,
Shinedoe, Damian Schwarz, Luca Bacchetti and Johnny D. This release sees
Arnaud & Delete drop three fantastic house cuts. 'Funktion at Junction,'
'Moonshine ABC's' and the London-Venezuela dedicated 'Kensal Caracas
Street.'"
Barbarix - Low Freqz 12 inch (Aquatic Lab) [LAB008EP]
$10.25
"Brand new Aquatic Lab Records release following on from their string
on
successful Truth releases and a debut from UK based producer Barbarix. A
hotly tipped newcomer who has initially made his name after a wicked remix
of a tune off the latest Mistabishi LP Printer Jam on Hospital Records, the
original received over one million hits on Youtube and was Colin Murray's
record of the week on Radio One. 'Low Freqz' and 'Bass Rocker' both tap
into the sounds of now, hard and heavy dubstep for the dancefloor supported
by the likes of Maryy Anne Hobbs, Nerm & D-Code, Akira Kiteshi, The Others
and more."
Barn Owl - The Conjurer LP (Root Strata) [RS044LP] $16.50
"The Conjurer is the latest offering by Bay Area duo Barn Owl. This new
long player finds Evan Caminiti & Jon Porras finally (by way of an actual
recording studio) documenting something that is a bit closer to their very
heavy live sets, with expanded peaks of white light distortion and enormous
valleys of bottom end. Each side opens with a brief funeral dirge to set
the mood, a precession of bare bones drum beats and bell like guitar
statements that bridge the gap to the wider open spaces of the almost side
long 'Across The Desert Of Ash' and 'Ancient Of Days.' It may seem obvious,
or even a little overwrought, but it has to be said that these guys really
do evoke all kinds of cinematic drama with their music. Apocalyptic
westerns, bleak melodramas, mother nature fever dreams, it all seems to
come to mind amid the evening guitar passages, incantations, flute tones,
and finally, the solo piano that emerges lost among the electric mayhem to
close the album. Considering that amount of terrain, The Conjurer is far
from being scattered or rushed sounding. The record moves at a crafted even
rhythm, slowly merging from one scene of violence to the next of almost
silent recovery, then back up the mountain again. An edition of 500 LPs,
half colored deep red, half black. Cover etching by Evan Caminiti."
Brian Jonestown Massacre, The - Love LP (A Records) [AUK019LP]
$20.00
180 gram LP version.
Brightblack Morning Light/Lungfish - Split 7 inch (Harvest)
[07BRIGHLUNG] $7.75
BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT deliver the track "Another Reclaimation"
(recorded live in 2008 at the South Paw in Brooklyn, NY), while LUNGFISH
offer their "You are the War" off their Feral Hymns release. The record is
spun at 33 1/3rpm, comes on red/clear vinyl, and is limited to 500 copies.
This is an Anti-War release fueled by NABOB's (of BBML) continued objection
for the ongoing wars overseas; both tracks on the record exist to resist
these wars. The purpose is to make it known the current wars should end &
peace should begin by our decisions.
Broadcast & The Focus Group - Investigate Witch Cults Of The
Radio Age LP (Warp Records) [WARP189LP] $12.25
"Blasts of distorted guitar, off-tuned analog keyboards and barreling
drums
mixed with psychedelic soundscapes and occasional disorientation are
hallmarks of the Birmingham, England-based group's sound. As the New York
Times put it, 'Broadcast's songs are full of creaks, rumbles, saw-toothed
distortion and untamed feedback. Each intrusion (is) plotted, and they let
the disruption build and sometimes take over a song in a billowing
crescendo. Within the tick-tock riffs and pop melodies, the noise seems to
break out like steam through volcanic fissures.' In anticipation of their
2010 full length, this EP is a collaboration between Trish Keenan (vocals),
James Cargill (Bass, Keyboards, Atmospherics and Production) and long time
friend of the band - Julian House, co-founder of the enigmatic UK indie
label Ghost Box Music. House, a visual artist as well as musician and
producer created Ghost Box Music and his band The Focus Group in order to
release the records and create album art he and his friends love - and as
he says, 'the purpose of (Ghost Box Music and The Focus Group) was to
create not just a record label, but an imaginary world.'"
Broke Revue (Dan Melchior) - Oldtime Future Shock LP (Milou
Studios) [REV1] $10.75
AVAILABLE AGAIN!!! The debut album from DAN MELCHIOR's BROKE REVUE
originally "released" on the English Milou Studios label (run by
MORRISSEY's drummer, who pressed the title, but somehow never managed to
distribute it further than his living room). Fourteen tracks of
Melchior-style rock'n'roll played with bitterness, scorn, rage, and an
honest simplicity that burns bright from start to finish.
Carlos Giffoni & Hive Mind - Claustrophobic Wreck LP (Ultra
Eczema) [UE075LP] $25.75
"Although it's better than prison, it still isn't easy to live with two
guys wearing an ankle bracelet, in the smallest possible wooden cabin
somewhere in between New York and Detroit. There's no food anymore, tab
water is not drinkable, and eating each other's intestines seems to be the
last enjoyable possibility. The thick dense sound of synth throbbing
bubbles up from these hungry bowels. 2 synths fighting their ways to better
times, though right now everything looks pretty dark, gnarly and
industrial, classic heavy synth waves, rhythmic madness and electronic
sadness. Comes in a collage sleeve by DT, limited to 300 copies."
Cedric "Im" Brooks & The Light Of Saba - The Magical Light Of
Saba 2xLP (Honest Jon's) [HJR004LP] $19.00
New 2009 edition on Honest Jon's Records (originally released in 2003).
This compilation is drawn from extremely rare singles and LPs featuring the
work of Cedric "Im" Brooks -- an old boy of the Alpha School in Kingston,
Jamaica, alongside alumni like Don Drummond, Johnny Moore and Tommy McCook
of The Skatalites, jazz-men Joe Harriott and Harold McNair, and too many
other musical giants to mention. He was a member of The Vagabonds before
Jimmy James moved the group to England, and during the '60s, toured
Caribbean hotels and clubs with various big bands and combos. His own
musical horizons -- especially new jazz music -- were increasingly distant
from these constrained commercial contexts; and he eagerly accepted an
invitation to visit a friend in the U.S. In Philadelphia, Cedric was
awe-struck by the music and vibes of the Sun Ra Arkestra. He was on the
point of joining the commune, when the birth of his second rocksteady was
in full swing on the island, and Cedric took up Ra's challenge by starting
The Mystics, to experiment with free-jazz and poetry, African robes and
dancers. During this period, Cedric's long association with Studio One
produced the hit single "Money Maker" and his musical direction of Count
Ossie's Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari was commemorated by the classic
Grounation triple-LP set, before his frustrations with purely rasta
patterns encouraged him to set up The Light of Saba, in order to go into
other aspects of African drumming. Taking leads from Hugh Masekela and Fela
Kuti, the recordings of Cedric "Im" Brooks and The Light of Saba delineate
"world music" way ahead of its time. The group offers a blend of African
and U.S., Cuban and other West Indian influences -- calypso and funk, rumba
and be-bop, nyabinghi and disco -- magnificently expressed as classic
reggae.
Chris Brokaw - Solo Acoustic Volume Three LP (Vin Du Select
Qualitite) [VDSQ003LP] $16.50
"12-String arrangements from a true master of the instrument, Brokaw
shows
a range from waltzes and ballads to experiments and rhythms. Member of
Codeine, The NewYear, Come, Thurston Moore and the NewWave Bandits and many
more ensembles."
Demdike Stare - Symbiosis - Part 2 12 inch (Demdike Stare)
[DDS002EP] $13.25
This is part 2 in a 12" vinyl series of tracks off of Demdike Stare's
Symbiosis (LOVE 059CD). "Haxan" is a deep and immersive exercise in
dubbed-out bliss, "Conjoined" loops out long-distance percussive
transmissions overlaid with Turkish edits, while "Trapped" dissects Iranian
source material and exposes a stretched, haunted sound fragment. "Ghostly
Hardware" closes proceedings with 7 minutes of icy analog, bringing to mind
the pristine, visceral sounds of Mika Vainio. 300 copies only for the
world.
Dog
Day - Elder Schoolhouse 12 inch (Divorce) [D033EP] $15.00
"These odd duck popsters sound totally sizzled on this new 12 inch 45.
Side
A is a collection of tunes rolled-up earlier this year at Rick White's
Elder Schoolhouse studio. It includes a late night number written by Mr.
White especially for his Halifax guests. Flip it over, and the entire B
side takes a hazy journey lead by infinite guitar, starting with an ending
and answering only to that most distant call. Dig? 5 songs - 26:55 minutes.
Edition of 400 copies."
Einstellung - Wings Of Desire 2xLP (Capsule) [CAP005]
$18.00
From the deepest depths of the industrial heartlands of Middle England
comes a small ray of light. Since late 2003 a warm glow has steadily grown
into what can only be described as a fireball. From this point on let this
gentle fireball be known as EINSTELLUNG. Blending glorious monotonous
Krautrock with melodic tones and heavy slabs of Sabbath riffage, whilst
finding time to declare sonic warfare on those tinnitus victims who have
passed the point of no return. For this limited edition release (500
copies) artist LUCY MCLAUCHLAN has been commissioned to create a beautiful
gatefold sleeve, reflective of the bands industrial roots.
Ephma - A Walking Letter 12 inch (Stattmusik) [STATT022EP]
$11.50
Zürich's Ephrem Lüchinger (keys) and Manuel Rindlisbacher (bass) are
Ephma,
and this is their first release. A Walking Letter can sound industrial,
have a touch of jazz, be celestial or totally electro, and, at times,
groovy enough to dance to. Ethnic instruments are peppered with voices and
rhythmic samples of everyday noises. You certainly won't fall asleep on
your sofa, on the contrary, some of you clubbers, who think you have heard
it all, might even prick up your ears.
F.S. Blumm & David Grubbs - Back To The Plants 7 inch
(Ahornfelder) [AH17-1] $14.25
RELEASE DATE: 11-16-2009
'Back To The Plants' ( music for "drawings" ) is based on an
improvisation
between David Grubbs (Electric Guitar) and F.S.Blumm (Classical Guitar )
done on the 2nd of July 2008 inside Peter Coffin's sculpture "Untitled
(Greenhouse)" at the CAAC, Sevilla. The Recording has later been enriched
by material that F.S.Blumm found on his hard-drive. You will hear Ulrich
Wangenheim on Bass-Clarinet ( Part Three), Jan Thoben on Drums ( Part One),
Marcel Tļrkowsky on Bass ( Part Four). 'Back To The Plants' was finished
in January 2009.
Factums - Flowers LP (Sacred Bones) [SBR025] $14.75
Flowers is the latest full length from Seattle's bleak and ominous
FACTUMS
and is their second for the Sacred Bones label. Recorded between 2006 and
2007 but only now seeing a proper release, Flowers is dark and disturbing.
The album has twenty-two tracks that fluctuate from sound collage to
soundtrack-esque moments as well as more structured songwriting. This album
also has flashes of the abrasive electropunk that has garnered them
well-deserved comparisons to Chrome, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle
and much of the early Wax Trax catalog.
Gatekeeper - Optimus Maximus 12 inch (Fright) [FRIGHT001EP]
$11.50
On their debut for Fright, the newly-appointed home for serial killer
synth
symphonies, Chicago's Gatekeeper create sinister synth cathedral epics that
conjure the kind of crimson-splattered disco that terrified '80s babies.
"Forgotten" and "Obsidian" are hi-NRG Hades anthems where raven-haired
beauties wave around razor-sharp silver fans. "Visions" is a re-imagining
of Giorgio Moroder emerging from memetic polyalloy mists ready to slay
aliens and ENCOM warlocks with his arsenal of Moog machinery. The
title-track contains the finest final chase sequence orchestrations outside
of a Kurt Russell movie.
Glorytellers - Atone LP (Southern) [281561] $16.25
GEOFF FARINA has been making records and touring consistently since the
early '90s, and he has carved out small enclaves of dedicated fans across
the US, Europe, and Japan. His band KARATE made nine genre-bending records
and toured extensively for 12 years, and the songs he penned with THE
SECRET STARS have reached cult status, covered by the likes of Death Cab
for Cutie and Ida. Since 2006, Farina's GLORYTELLERS have combined Karate's
indie-rock urgency with the Secret Stars' soft-spoken intimacy to evoke the
best qualities of both bands. Atone, Glorytellers' second release, is a
collection of nine unclassifiable gems that gently unfold with ease and
dignity. Atone reaches into all corners of Americana, as bawling Walter
Horton-style harp punctuates the bluesy "Softly as She Sings," and acoustic
and electric guitars on "Concaves'" are woven together like twin fiddles.
But Glorytellers have their feet firmly planted in '80s & '90s indie music.
Harvey Milk - Live At Supersonic July 12, 2008 LP (Capsule)
[CAP006] $14.50
Recorded at Supersonic 2008, this was HARVEY MILK's first ever UK
performance. After much discussion Capsule managed to coax Harvey Milk out
of America to play in the UK for the first time. Saturday night on the
outside stage at Supersonic '08 became a memorable occasion with this long
awaited performance providing a suitably raucous climax to the festival's
proceedings-they certainly didn't disappoint then and Capsule is equally
excited to have been able to record and package up this little piece of
Supersonic memorabilia as a special souvenir. Limited Edition of 500
copies pressed on clear vinyl.
Hizatron/Geiom - Von Glooperstien/Bubbles 12 inch (Berkane Sol
Records) [BRKDUB013EP] $10.25
"Special white vinyl pressing for the first 500 copies only. Part
man/part
machine Hizatron takes Berkane Sol in a new acidic direction with the
outstanding tune that is 'Von Glooperstein.' Atmospheric, refined, techy,
funky and deranged are all accurate descriptions of this ever evolving
masterclass in gloop. Beautiful digi bells, crisp clicks and clacks and a
monster lead line all combine to work even the most demanding dancefloor.
This tune will mix with UK Funky just as well as it does with techno and
house. In a manic attempt to fuse half step, electro booty bass, niche and
primates into one coherent whole, Geiom came up with the delicious mongrel
known as 'Bubbles.' Wonky synths collide with tuff drum patterns in a
tense, restless fashion which peaks with a kind of homage to the Midlands
favourite underground genre, Bassline house. There's a kind of psychedelic
terror at the heart of this tune but its way too playful to ever become
truly menacing. Both these tunes demonstrate the high standard of musical
creativity that is coming out of Nottingham right now, but give no
indication of an easy to identify style. Which is just how we like it!"
Hot
Toddy - I Need Love 12 inch (Eskimo) [ESK503070] $11.50
Hot Toddy is Nottingham-based musician Chris Todd, the guitarist and
one-half of the production team behind Crazy P. His eclectic sound is a
technicolor fusion of house, techno, acid and psychedelia, tempered by
soulful '70s disco, early '80s hard-edged electro-funk, and a pinch of rock
n' roll. "I Need Love" featuring Ron Basejam is one of the biggest tracks
on the Cosmic Balearic Beats Vol. 2 compilation (ESK 502917). Includes a
remix from Morgan Geist of Metro Area fame.
Hunee - Barrio Payment 12 inch (Retreat) [RTR004EP] $11.50
"After a split 12'' and two EPs from its founders, your favourite
vinyl-only label welcomes an exciting new artist for its fourth release.
Hailing from Berlin, Hunee is a true music lover, a passionate DJ and an
amazing producer (not to mention a top notch friend). His recent
productions on Feel Music, w.t. Records and Drumpoet Community have caught
the ear of many key players and made him one to watch in 2010. Needless to
say, Hunee takes it to a whole other level with his Barrio Payment trilogy:
from soulful House to slow-mo Disco via Afrobeat, the producer holds
nothing back and that's exactly how we like it at Retreat hq. Is this
really house music? Does anyone care? Similar to the beat freakings of Tony
Allen or IG Culture, 'Barrio Payment' rolls and rolls with a solid bassline
anchoring the groove. But just when you think it's just a drum & bass
workout, Detroit-style stabs warp the track in another new dimension and
turn it into the official soundtrack to Nigeria's upcoming space program."
Impediments - Impediments LP (Happy Parts) [HPR999] $12.25
RELEASE DATE: 10-19-2009
Limited edition vinyl LP comes with CD.
Javelin - Javelin 12 inch (Thrill Jockey) [THR01237EP]
$13.75
"Javelin consists of two cousins, Tom Van Buskirk and George Langford.
When
not performing, Javelin is busy producing. Together they have amassed a
vast catalogue of music, varying in its aesthetic range. Songs resemble the
record collection from whence they spring, if not literally as when
sampling, then figuratively as when past forms are cited and
re-contextualized. Sounds range from broken dance jams to relaxed
instrumental cut-ups, created with love on their MPCs. Long forgotten
samples are chopped and re-assembled with drums, wooden recorders, old
keyboards, handmade thumb pianos or whatever instruments are readily at
hand. The result is a kind of mix tape fantasy (residing in the mythical
'dollar bins of the future'), where R & B impresarios, amateur booty bass
producers and Andean flautists hold equal sway."
Johnny D - Point Of No Return 12 inch (Oslo) [OSLO014EP]
$11.50
"As a point of no return is referred in different contexts the date
from
which a return to the starting point is no longer possible. Johnny D's OSLO
014 confirms this with a truly musical climax. Johnny D presents, after his
hit Orbitalife, Point Of No Return - a house track, which again emphasizes
the special feeling of that producer to tremble the dancefloor. Here are
playful vocals and a sexy groove on the program. Also 'Gardaness' on the B
side is a title not to be sneezed at. The nearly nine- minute tool is
characterized by the impulsive bass line, which is highlighted by
atmospheric vocals."
Joshua Emery Blatchley - Solo Acoustic Volume One LP (Vin Du
Select Qualitite) [VDSQ001LP] $16.50
"VDSQ (Vin Du Select Qualitite) is a new acoustic guitar LP series
curated
by Steve Lowenthal of Swingset Magazine and Plastic Records. The first
three releases planned for early fall release include the debut recording
from Joshua Blatchley of Mountain Home, Mark McGuire, who plays guitar in
Cleveland drone heroes Emeralds, and session-man, indie rock legend Chris
Brokaw, who played in bands such as Codeine, Come, The New Year, Pullman,
and the New Wave Bandits and many others. The series will be released on
high quality LP with letterpress sleeves, each with a picture of the guitar
used to record the record. Track-by-track notes will be included on the
back cover. 'The idea behind VDSQ was really to do a label that was a nod
to the great guitar-oriented labels like Takoma and Transatlantic but
focusing on contemporary artists rather than reissues,' said Lowenthal. 'I
tried to curate a series that transcended genre and really pull together
some exceptional musicians from different geographic and musical scenes.
The goal is to hopefully bridge the gap between traditional and
contemporary styles of music all within the context of acoustic guitar
music. The process of each edition of the series is such that it really
lets the personality of the player come to the forefront so each record
really reflects the essence of the personality of the players.' A new voice
in the Ragtime and American Primitive guitar-playing lineage, Blatchley
offers a unique interpretation of both new and traditional compositions.
Blatchley performs in the band Mountain Home with Marissa Nadler and Greg
Weeks of Espers."
Kirk Degiorgio - Isomer Shift 12 inch (B12) [B12023EP]
$9.00
"Kirk Degiorgio, the man behind Future Past and As One, continues to
innovate with unique sounds and dance floor friendly beats. The Isomer
Shift EP is an uncompromising set of progressive dance floor beats in the
tradition of Craig/Saunderson and Beltram. The four tracks are outstanding
21st century techno, an instant Degiorgio classic with typically syncopated
dance beats, beautiful chords and rhythms that create mesmerizing and
energetic soundscapes. On the A side, 'Isomer Shift' is a perfect example
of Degorigo's relentless rhythmical talents. Twisted beats, beautiful
strings and chords combine to create a master work of futuristic funk.
'Isidora,' the second track brings bigger and spacier atmospheres to a club
fulfilled club beat. The B side takes the future funk even deeper, great
strings provide the backing for two tracks that see Degiorgio returning to
his previous influences with rhythms and bass lines synonymous with Kirk's
much acclaimed earlier works."
L'acephale - Malefeasance 2xLP (Aurora Borealis) [ABX032LP]
$18.75
In the wake of their polarizing first AB release, Mord und Totschlag ,
L'ACEPHALE return with Malefeasance, a lengthy and complex affair that
further explores their fascinations and strikes headlong into the darkest
of musical vistas. The journey this time is perhaps even more academic:
further ethnographic audio elements are now present, more spacious
passages, a deeper approach. By no means do L'Acephale make music for the
casual listener, nor will this album appeal to all, in many ways they
transcend the listener's preconceived ideas of what may be expected:
L'Acephale are perhaps most successful at operating beyond the constraints
of genre altogether, and Malefeasance, with its dark, dreamlike and
harrowing atmospheres, is their testament.
Makoto Kawabata - Under Your Moonshine LP (Qbico) [QBICO096LP]
$22.25
"Makoto Kawabata -- electric guitar (with no overdubbing) recorded
around
2003/4. The last Makoto Kawabata release for Qbico! And strange enough,
Makoto told me that this was his last solo guitar recording with no
overdubs. He gave to me this special solo a while ago, maybe 2003/4. I
waited for the right moment to release it, just before the closure of
Qbico, it all started with him."
Mark Mcguire - Solo Acoustic Volume Two LP (Vin Du Select
Qualitite) [VDSQ002LP] $16.50
"Melodic ballads and new songs from Emeralds guitarist spark new
innovations and memories thought to be lost. One third of the drone masters
Emeralds."
Mats Gustafsson - Mats G Plays Albert A LP (Qbico)
[QBICOLAMDBA] $47.50
"125 copies only one-sided LP black vinyl, with insert. Mats Gustafsson
--
baritone sax, music box rec, mixed and mastered June 16, 2009 by Ola Glans,
Svinaberga, Sweden. After his rendition of Duke Ellington pieces, the
series continue with Mats unique versions/visions of classic Ayler's tunes
like 'Our Prayer' and 'Angels/Spirits.' Here he plays music box and
baritone sax; the sound is full and warm. Recorded in June 2009. Limited
edition of 99 copies only. 'These two albums on yr label are two of the
ones I m most pleased with ever ever ever.... f*** yeah!!!!' -- Mats"
Matt U - Jump 12 inch (Wheel & Deal) [WHEELY003EP] $10.25
"N-Type's label is on a roll right now and 003 sees a massive release
from
Budapest based DJ/producer Matt U who is nothing less than a tune making
machine. Armed with a seriously heavy deep and techy based sound, Matyas
Szalai has made a name for himself releasing hard and heavy drum & bass for
labels as renowned as the legendary Moving Shadow, Timeless and Cylon. With
over 34 releases to his name since 2004, this is one producer you should be
keeping an eye on. His music encapsulates many genres of music, from drum &
bass to dubstep, but all with that 'Matt-U' sound running throughout.
Recently his dubstep tracks have been getting plenty of attention from DJs
such as N-Type, TRG, Luke Envoy, Tes La Rok and many more."
Mittens on Strings - Let's Go To Baba's LP (Songs) [SOUNGS001]
$12.75
MITTENS ON STRINGS are a band of friends who have been playing music
together in some shape or form since 2000. Recorded by the band during
off-hours in various studios over the better part of a year, the result is
an album lush with string arrangements and assorted overdubs while striving
to retain the immediacy of each individual song. The album is a true group
effort, where each member played an active role in it's birth and
rearing-no songwriter reigns supreme. As the narrator in the song "Lou Reed
Says" reveals, "If you write songs, you can sing songs. If you don't write
songs, you can't sing songs." Limited edition pressing of 500. Mittens on
Strings will be touring in support of the record, in the late fall of 2009.
MLZ
- One Cycle 12 inch (Modern Love) [LOVE056EP] $11.50
Every new record from MLZ doesn't quite fit in with the one that
preceded
it, something that's doubly true for this release. "One Cycle" is probably
the most fierce, stripped and relentless thing ever released by Modern
Love, a classic reduction that rotates into a frenzied crescendo of panning
stabs and a washed-out, chugging backbone that doesn't let up. MLZ's remix
of DJ Ghosthunter offers up a dank, obliterated house configuration guided
by the spirit of Theo Parrish and KDJ.
Moon Duo - Killing Time 12 inch (Sacred Bones) [SBR024]
$13.50
MOON DUO is the solo alter-ego of WOODEN SHJIPS guitarist and singer
RIPLEY
JOHNSON. Under the Moon Duo moniker Johnson creates expansive Krautrock
influenced tapestries of warm cascading fuzz and controlled feedback,
organ, and accenting keyboard. This four-song 12-inch is the second Moon
Duo release and it incorporates a much more concise, composed and driving
sound than before. Johnson expands on ideas only hinted at on the Sick
Thirst 12-inch, adding a driving drum machine beat behind the thick walls
of layered sound. Don't sleep on this one.
Mordant Music - SyMptoMs (Version) 10 inch (Mordant Music)
[MORDANT034EP] $10.25
"Mordant Music curse the parquet once again with a further 10"
doppel-lunge
from a frothing Nesst. 'SyMptoMs (version)', the title track from the
forthcoming albuMM of the same name, is presented here with Baron Mordant
simply consigned to hubristic crosstalk. This thunder flash cousin of
'Hummdrumm' ebbs & flows off-handedly as if locked in the ear canals
searching for a rhythm to cling to. This is club spillage for itching
beachcombers as swathes of aural detritus rumble gaseously at dawn.
Horizontal rave. 'I'm Not Your Mate, Mate' is not giving you a fag, an ear
to bend like Comaneci or a lift home in the boot. The sentiment has been
swollen tenfold & its life sucked out vacuum squared o'er the decades. Be
told, mate."
Mr.
California & The State Police - Shrimp And Chocolate LP (Mr. California)
[LPMRCASHRI] $9.00
Only 500 copies pressed of the long-awaited twenty-seven-track album
recorded in San Francisco by DAVIDE CERRI (ex-GRABBIES). More one-man-band
craziness with a punky noisy edge. Will not disappoint the freaks, geeks
and weirdos.
Noveller/Aidan Baker - Colourful Disturbances LP (Divorce)
[D032LP] $16.50
"Guitars warped so hard they dissolve into pure consciousness!
Seriously,
this record had to happen because these two are the NOW of transcendental
guitar weirdness. In families like ours where deformed music of one kind or
another pours out of the speakers all day long, Toronto's Aidan Baker is a
household name. He is no doubt one of the most imaginative experimental
musicians of the new generation, quickly creating a universe of limitless
sound with his bursting discography. He offers this record an extensive
piece which mixes drone, texture, and an ever-bowing foundation -- imagine
the sound of falling backwards... forever. The new blood on this split is
guitarist Sarah Lipstate from Brooklyn, New York (aka Noveller). Sarah's
prepared twin guitar works up a slow hypnotic force, gently pulling way out
to the furthest deep end of pulses and patterns. Beautiful repetitions
effortlessly skirt over a dark undercurrent. A+++ listen. Edition of 600
copies."
Oren Ambarchi + Lasse Marhaug - Devil Wolf Men 7 inch (Pica
Disk) [PICA010] $10.75
A tapestry of location recordings and studio collaborations made during
OREN AMBARCHI and LASSE MARHAUG's tour of China in 2005.
Radian - Chimeric LP (Thrill Jockey) [THR224LP] $13.75
"It had been four years since Juxtaposition, our last record and one
year
of a self-chosen absence from the stage, that we met again to work on
Chimeric. This break was a necessary step to leave any routine behind us,
to restructure the working process, to rethink the concept of this band and
its music. It was always a driving force within the band's history to enter
new territories, like it happened with the transition from the self-titled
EP to the abstract minimalism of TG11 and finally in the more colourful
rhythms of the Rec.Extern and Juxtaposition period. But this was done and
we needed to go further, exploring forms and sounds we had not been dealing
with so far - and adapting them to our system. Chimeric is not a polished
album. Within our context it is raw, broken, even dark sometimes. Steady,
multiple rhythms, layered on top of each other disappear into chaos and
turn back into discreet structures in the next moment. References of rock
music, executed with the precision of a sequencer; mutated, restructured. A
lot on this album is about control and the loss of control. The risk of
failure. This was probably always in our music, but kept in a very stable
form, sometimes even hidden. But Chimeric is much more free. Some of the
longer pieces are composed of very different parts and different colours
along a continuous timeline. They tend to evolve in a narrative form and
are moving through various scenes and surroundings, which is also present
in the spacial relationship between the instruments. One could see the
album as one continuous story, where some elements are passed from one
piece to the next and then serve as the base for a completely new scenario.
The result was something unpredictable and unstable, even for us." --
Martin Brandlmayr, Stefan Németh, John Norman (Radian)
Rossi B & Luca - Don't Cry Soundbwoy 12 inch (Heavy Artillery)
[HEAVY011EP] $10.75
Rossi B and long-term cohort Luca smack it around some more with
utterly-deranged bass-line power manoeuvres, completely stripping off any
lactic sounds and leaving a pristine rhythm. I.D. drops a sensual garage
mover which delivers equal parts ruffage and sensuality with just the right
amount of piquancy for club play. 501 runs the dance ragged with a banging,
rave-ready and heavily synth-inflected side-long cut.
Scuba - Speak 10 inch (Naked Lunch) [NL004EP] $10.25
"You haven't worked in weeks. You're unshaven and unkempt, your fridge
is
as bare as the dying light of a Sunday afternoon spent alone is bleak. Your
rent is in arrears, and you dread the thought of more bills arriving
through the door tomorrow. You spend more money on whiskey and weed than
you spend on food, and have recently taken to shoplifting cheese from the
supermarket. Barefoot, in your underwear still, you walk over to your
record player, still faithfully spinning around and around and around since
God knows what time this morning when the last people left. You reach for
the record you walked into town to buy, pull it from its sleeve, still
fresh despite a gathering storm of your greasy fingerprints clouding it
like uncertainty clouds your future. For five and a half minutes you stand
listening, eyes closed, and your troubles fall away. You flip the record
over and, for a further five and a half minutes of pure joy, you hear that
which few others ever will. THE FUTURE IS NAKED. DJ support from: Martyn,
Scuba, 2562, TRG, Breakage, Brendon Moeller, Floating Points, Mary Anne
Hobbs & Instra:mental."
Shearing Pinx - Weaponry LP (Divorce) [D031LP] $16.50
"Divorce was so pleased with how Shearing Pinx delivered on the
Haruspex 7"
that we decided to up the ante considerably and release a double LP in two
parts. In return the Pinx have gone all in with the new material. Weaponry
pt. 1 is a mountain that will remain visible in the sea of astounding,
bizarre releases Shearing Pinx have been pouring for the last half decade.
It is made clear from the first moments of the opening track; the Vancouver
trio has been committed here to tape while in rare form. This LP sets up a
classic, demento-tuned twin guitar battle where a nonchalant vocal delivery
squares off against the drum set's muscular fake jazz-jizz-isms. William S.
Burroughs used a shotgun to create paintings. Shearing Pinx use musical
instruments to wound and maim. Tunes for the unglued. Artwork by Rick White
of Eric's Trip / Elevator / Rick White Album. Edition of 600. RIYL: Harry
Pussy, No New York, Sonny Sharrock."
Skatebard/dreesvn - 19. Sept. 2009 - 14:00, Filter, Skippergata
33, 0154.. 12 inch (Sex Tags Mania) [MANIA018EP] $11.50
..Oslo, Norway. "How many records and how big could a label like Sex
Tags
Mania grow without loosing its actual content, its initial purpose and its
'realness'? Growth is the sword of Damocles over every artist and label's
head. But try and tell the drinker to lay off the wine or take the needle
from the junkie. As they live for what they do, their activity continues,
knowing that every release is getting them closer to an (or the) ultimatum.
So, mark it off to keep it holy? Start a new project, a new name, and a new
identity for every release to stay out of the ordinary? Put a stamp on a
record and leave the rest to the imagination of its addressee? Whatever you
do, don't bore yourself with it!"
SP:MC - Taiko Dub 12 inch (Tempa) [TEMPA045EP] $10.75
After gaining massive support from dubstep's most discerning and
influential selectors Mala, Skream and Youngsta, SP:MC presents Taiko
Dub/Bad Dreams. Taiko are a type of hollow Japanese drum, struck with
hardwood sticks called bachi, and as a result, the track has a meditative
quality, taking the listener to a place of clarity. "Bad Dreams" was
crafted alongside Joker D, who submerged the track in multiple layers of
bass at varying pitches, seeking out long-forgotten, repressed fears.
Spencer Parker - Give My Regards To Holloway 12 inch (Area
Remote) [AREA013EP] $11.50
With hot reworkings of Ricardo Villalobos' "Enfants" and Afefe Iku's
huge
"Mirror Dance," and having his music released on underground house labels
such as Liebe*Detail, Buzzin' Fly, Saved and Rekids, next up is Spencer
Parker's debut release on Amsterdam's Area Remote. Supported by Radio
Slave, Luciano, Laurent Garnier, Richie Hawtin, Ben Watt, Nic Fanciulli and
Pete Tong, etc. Package includes a David Labeij remix, who has become a
prominent figure within the burgeoning Dutch house scene.
Starless & Bible Black - The Shape Of The Shape LP (Locust)
[LOCUST118LP] $16.50
"On their sophomore release, The Shape of the Shape, Manchester,
England's
Starless & Bible Black have drawn together the sounds of '70s Topanga
Canyon country-rock, '80s Mancunian jangle, and space-age psych tinged
drones to make a dynamic, warm and woodsy second album. Gone are the
dulcimers and banjos of the first record, replaced by an electrifying wall
of Telecaster and Moog, and standing in the center of this bold, widescreen
sound resides the earthy and husky voice of Hélène Gautier. Recorded at
Bryn Derwen within the wilds of the Snowdonian mountains, and during all
night sessions in the relative tranquility of their local village hall,
Shape Of The Shape is an album of contrasting styles, themes and approaches
that coheres beautifully into a seamless entity. We get guided through
verses and choruses of swamp rock, gothic bluesy chanson and smoky acoustic
ballads, as well as a jazz-folk tinged instrumental -- after all, the band
take their name from the classic 1965 Stan Tracey cut -- but the apogee of
this collection is the driving drone-choral opus, Les Furies - sung in
French, this is a very Gallic observation of after hours culture. And while
this album traverses all these different styles, the band never deny the
importance of a fine tune and a fine song."
Twin Stumps - Twin Stumps LP (Dais) [DAIS009] $17.75
TWIN STUMPS are a raw, unhinged noise/hardcore act from Brooklyn-and
Dais
is excited to release their brutal six-song debut 12-inch. Put the
Brainbombs, Cabaret Voltaire, and No Trend in a blender and you've come
somewhat close to their sound. Limited edition pressing of 300.
Various Artists - HHBTM Singles Club Box Set 7 inch box (Happy
Happy Birthday To Me) [HHBTM097] $59.50
In 2007 HHBTM Records set out to release 13 split singles within a
year.
Well it took two years, but the singles club finally came to an end. All
the subscriptions are long gone, but a small amount of a singles were set
aside to be sold via mom & pop shops in box sets. The club includes 13
singles with 26 bands total all giving exclusive material including OF
MONTREAL, APPLES IN STEREO, ALL GIRL SUMMER FUN BAND, THE MARBLES,
TULLYCRAFT, BOYRACER, BUNNYGRUNT, CARS CAN BE BLUE, PHIL WILSON of THE JUNE
BRIDES, CASPER & THE COOKIES, THE SMITTENS, ALWAYS RED SOCIETY (OLIVIA
TREMOR CONTROL), THE SUNSHINE FIX (OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL), PATIENCE PLEASE,
FISHBOY, RED PONY CLOCK, BABY CALENDAR, ANDY FROM DENVER (MARSHMALLOW
COAST), THE FAINTEST IDEAS, VELCRO STARS, KEITH JOHN ADAMS, THE LOVE LETTER
BAND, HIGH WATER MARKS, JAMES HUSBAND, POISON CONTROL CENTER, and IDEAL
FREE DISTRIBUTION. Each single is on a different color vinyl and all come
housed in a silkscreen sleeve. Only 600 of each single were pressed.
Various Artists - New Kidz On The Blok 12 inch (Hey! Records)
[HEY014EP] $11.50
Michel De Hey is constantly looking out for new talent for his labels
Hey
and EC, and Rauwkost, Egbert and Olene Kadar are the new kids on the block
in Holland who present their best tracks to you.
Will Guthrie - Spike-s 7 inch (Pica Disk) [PICA011] $10.75
Two intense pieces of drum / guitar / electronics blow-out from
Australian
sound-wizard WILL GUTHRIE.
[ H I S T O R I C A L ]
Fall - Live At The Witch Trials 2xLP (Turning Point) [TNP208]
$21.75
A vinyl reissue of the legendary debut album by the band that redefined
British punk rock with their own style of cacophonic minimalism punctuated
by the scathingly cynical vocals of MARK E. SMITH. But you already knew
that. Originally released in January 1979 on Step Forward. Eleven tracks
including the classics "Rebellious Jukebox," "Two Steps Back," and "No
Christmas For John Quays."
Fall - Dragnet 2xLP (Turning Point Music) [TNP209] $21.75
A vinyl reissue of the FALL's second album and guitarist CRAIG
SCANLON's
debut with the band. Originally released in October 1979, the record
includes the favorite "Spectre vs. Rector" and the melodically and
lyrically brilliant "Dice Man."
Fall - Grotesque (after The Gramme) LP (Turning Point Music)
[TNP210] $21.75
the 1980 Grotesque album that underlined the FALL's musical confidence
and
MARK E. SMITH's growing lyrical maturity. Ten classic tracks including the
faves "New Face In Hell," "The Impression of J. Temperance," and "Container
Drivers."
Jay
Bolotin - Jay Bolotin LP (Locust) [LOCUST119LP] $18.00
Deluxe 180 gram vinyl featuring new liner notes and lyrics inserts.
"Described by Kris Kristofferson as 'one of the three best songwriters in
the country,' Kentucky native Jay Bolotin's songs have been championed by
the likes of Merle Haggard and Porter Wagoner, among many others. Yet Jay's
eponymous debut -- released on the major subsidiary Commonwealth United
label -- had the halflife of a mayfly when it went into circulation in 1970
and today it remains as phantasmic as the prairie ghosts that have long
populated his native Kentucky. However hasty or uncertain the release of
the album may have been some 40 years ago, one thing is certain: in a
darkened room in New York City at the end of a Kentucky childhood, a 20
year old Jay Bolotin cut a singularly enchanted album of unhurried, low key
loner ballads with the confidence and honesty of a seasoned journeyman. Jay
Bolotin is an unqualified singer songwriter gem that will appeal to fans of
Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt & Alex Chilton. Features Kenny Lyon on Bass
& Mark Taber on Piano & Harpsichord - both veterans of the Providence,
Rhode Island scene, The Fugs' Bobby Mason on percussion and David Mowry on
guitar. CD packaged in a trifold digipak with previously unpublished
photos. Remastered & reissued for the first time since its elusive
'release'."
Quarteto 1111 - Onde, Quando, Como, Porquê, Cantamos Pessoas
Vivas LP (Guerssen Records) [GUESS062LP] $23.75
Guerssen Records reissues on newly-remastered vinyl the rarest of all
'70s
Portuguese albums, and one of the best-ever progressive rock records from
Europe. Quarteto 1111 are better known for their psychedelic-pop
recordings, but in 1974, they also released this incredible album, a
brutal, mellotron-fuelled progressive rock monster very much inspired by UK
prog outfits such as King Crimson. A few years after, Quarteto's leader
José Cid recorded the well-known 10000 Anos Depois Entre Venus e Marte. The
album contains one long 30+ minutes suite only, and it sold only 600
copies, becoming one of the rarest collector items from Portugal. An
absolute must-have album, and a very nice reissue with the original artwork
including backflaps, and a fantastic remastered sound. Includes an insert
with rare, unseen photos from José Cid's personal archive and liner notes
by Quarteto 1111's authority João Carlos Callixto. Limited edition of 700
copies only.
Sabu Toyozumi/Mototeru Takagi - If Ocean Is Broken 2xLP (Qbico)
[QBICO095LP] $38.25
"Unreleased free jazz from Japan in its prime, recorded live in Tokyo
in
1971. Mototeru Takagi already released two beautiful duo LPs back then with
master Japanese drummers like Masahiko Togashi (Isolation) and Toshi
Tsuchitori (Origination), so this last DLP is complete in a sense the set
of duo recorded with the best, 1st generation, free music drummers from
Japan. On the other side it's complete also, the duo recorded by Sabu with
the greatest reeds player from Japan (still of the 1st generation); being,
his various duos with legendary Kaoru Abe, already documented on Qbico
(Senzei) and elsewhere. About the music: raw and passionate = primitive
beauty; both musicians are in top form and surely in their most creative
period. Mr. Takagi plays tenor, soprano sax and bass clarinet, while Sabu
is on drums and percussion. Original recordings were very well preserved
(fortunately) and the pressing came out wonderful! Cover by qbico which
Sabu can really dig, saying that En no Gyoja is deeply respected by him, he
opened the way..."
Various Artists - Africa Boogaloo: The Latinization Of West
Africa 2xLP (Honest Jon's) [HJR041LP] $19.00
Honest Jon's presents a collection of music from '60s and '70s West
Africa
that is heavily influenced by Latin sounds from the era, representing a
mutual cultural exchange that would have a permanent impact on the
evolution of each region's trademark sound. Much of what makes modern Latin
music so irresistible came from Africa in the first place. When the first
waves of African rhythms, reconstituted in the Caribbean, returned home on
radios and records, Africans -- especially in West and Central Africa --
received them with great enthusiasm. Staid dance bands that replicated
European music soon began to swing as Caribbean accents settled in their
rhythm sections. By the 1950s, Africa had produced its own Calypsonians,
and more than one African musician changed his name to give it a Latin
flavor. Some even composed songs in Spanish, while others wrote nonsense
lyrics that only sounded like the real thing. No band mixed local and Latin
styles more successfully than Orchestre Baobab and its leader Balla Sidibe.
The mesmerizing "On Verra Ca" finds Baobab leaning in the direction of the
stuttering mbalax sound that Youssou N'Dour carried to great popularity.
Other Senegalese bands followed the trend, like the Rio Band, Orchestre
N'Guewel, and Laba Sosseh from Gambia (like his compatriot Amara Toure) who
styled himself as a salsa singer after his hero Johnny Pacheco. From Benin,
Gnonnas Pedro sang in every pop style imaginable, but he seems especially
at home in an Afro-Cuban embrace, as you will hear on the 1977 recording
"Adigbedoto." The closing track also comes from Benin, a 1976 recording by
the celebrated Orchestre Poly Rythmo -- though the singer, Pierre Tchana,
hails from Cameroun. "Quiero Wapacha" features another Camerounian singer,
Charles Lembe, and also from Cameroun is legendary African Jazz
saxophonist, Manu Dibango, who is featured here alongside Le Grand Calle
and Cuban flutist Don Gonzalo. Orchestre OK Jazz recorded any number of
Afro-Cuban inspired sides: "Micorrason" is one of the band's earliest
songs, recorded soon after their formation in 1956. There is no better
evidence of the push-me-pull-you, back-and-forthing between two cultures
than the Afro-Latin compilation we have here. All the flow from an
unparalleled period of exuberance and creativity after World War II had
ended and before homegrown tyranny had yet to descend on the land. It was
Africa's moment, optimistic and free. You can hear it in the music.
--Adapted from text by Gary Stewart, author of Rumba On The River: A
History of the Popular Music of the Two Congos.
William Nowik - Pan Symphony In E Minor LP (Guerssen Records)
[GUESS063LP] $22.00
One of the newest and most surprising discoveries in the '60s & '70s
rock
rarities field, William Nowik's Pan Symphony In E Minor caused a big hype
among collectors. Certainly easy to understand, as it's an ace album no one
had heard of before. Guitarist William Nowik recorded this obscure
instrumental record back in 1974 somewhere in New York. It has such a deep
feeling, and is nothing anyone could have done without really loving it
aside of any commercial view. Psychedelic, progressive, very early
Floyd-sounding at times, Crimson-esque, and a kind of sound that reminds of
the early '70s British underground but with an experimental, trippy touch.
Fourteen tracks in total, but played like suites. Seems only 200 copies
were pressed and never distributed, so it needed 35 years to be discovered!
This wonderful reissue comes with the intended original artwork (it came
out in a green and black cover instead of the black and white that William
wanted), has nice remastered sound and includes an insert with rare, unseen
photos and extended liner-notes.